


Legendary Defenders of the Old Kingdom

by wallmakerrelict



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, POV Keith (Voltron), POV Third Person, Slow Burn, if you don't read Old Kingdom then this is a sheith high fantasy AU, if you don't watch Voltron then this is a pre-Sabriel semi-original story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2019-08-08 01:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 62,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16419893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallmakerrelict/pseuds/wallmakerrelict
Summary: Keith has grown up preparing to take the mantle of his mother: Abhorsen, guardian of Death and shepherd of the dead. But when the prince - and Keith's childhood friend - Shiro returns after being missing for two years, he brings a warning of a mysterious threat. Together they must gather the power of the Wallmakers and the Clayr to build a coalition powerful enough to save the kingdom.





	1. A memory

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Voltron AU set in the Old Kingdom hundreds of years before Sabriel. It is not a direct re-telling of Voltron or of Sabriel, nor is it a mash-up with any of the Old Kingdom books. Story elements, characters, and arcs from Voltron may be changed, omitted, and/or heavily simplified. 
> 
> If you’re only into the Old Kingdom, you can read this as a pre-Sabriel story featuring original characters with the same names as the cast of Voltron.
> 
> If you’re only into Voltron, I’ve incorporated enough background info that you can read this as a high fantasy AU. Enjoy!

The halls of the royal palace at Belisaere were grand and wide with walls of stone fitted together so perfectly that a finger run over the joints felt only a smooth flat surface, high ceilings from which hung tall and intricate tapestries, and long corridors that you could shout down and hear your voice come back to you three or four times before it faded. The architecture dwarfed the skinny boy in the blue coat as he snuck through the labyrinth, looking for an unguarded exit. 

He found what he was looking for in a little-used side door that opened onto a steep staircase leading to one of the less-popular of the gardens that surrounded the estate. There was an unlocked cupboard just inside the door. The boy peeled off his blue outer garment and unbuckled the leather vest underneath, leaving only a plain white linen shirt. He swapped his doeskin trousers with their silver buttons for a pair made of rough canvas, and his shiny boots for a borrowed set of well-worn slippers.

He took the clothes he had removed and wrapped them up in a bundle. The blue coat ended up on the outside of the wrap, its embroidered silver keys flashing in the torchlight. It was the most recognizable emblem of his identity: Keith, son of Krolia, Abhorsen-in-Waiting. He tucked the keys out of sight and stuffed the bundle in the cupboard under a stack of oiled tarps. As he slinked out the door and into the sunlight, he ran his fingers through his hair. His mother had combed it back until she could see his slate grey eyes. He mussed it up so that it fell into his face. 

Perfect. Now he looked just like any commoner child running the streets of Belisaere. Unless someone recognized his face or touched the Charter mark on his forehead, no one would think he was the scion of one of the great bloodlines of the Old Kingdom. 

Keith skirted the guards through the castle grounds and dashed off into the city. His mother would be busy at her audience with the King for hours yet, so he had an afternoon to see the parts of Belisaere that interested him more than a stuffy old castle. He wove through the marketplace, strolled on the cobbled streets of the outer districts, and made his way to the city boundary. Belisaere was almost completely surrounded by seawater, but the narrow land bridge connecting it to the mainland was guarded by a gatehouse set in a magnificent wall. Keith had seen it from his horse as he’d entered the city two days ago. Even then, he’d longed to see the view from the top. Perhaps he could see all the way to Sindle to the west, or even the Clayr’s glacier. 

There were more guards to dodge as he neared the city limits, but once he got close to the wall it was easy to hide in its shadow. There were buttresses sloping up from the ground to the first fifteen feet or so of the wall’s height, and Keith was small enough to disappear between them. He looked up. The slope of the buttresses was too steep to climb, but at the top of each one was a thin horizontal strip where one tier of the wall became the next – too narrow to be a landing meant for people, but just big enough that Keith could stand on it if he could reach it. 

He spared a glance around to make sure no one was watching before he unfocused his eyes and began sketching Charter marks in his mind. His hands flitted in the air, making their shapes as he breathed their names. Marks for wind, and lifting, and weightlessness. When he had them spread out before him, dancing with undirected potential, he drew them together with a master mark and a clap of his hands. 

His stomach did a flip as his body momentarily forgot gravity. A bloom of air scattered the dirt at his feet and propelled him upwards, just high enough to grab the lip of the landing. He scrambled onto it triumphantly and looked up again, planning the next part of his ascent. 

“Psst!” The unexpected sound made him flinch and almost fall.

Someone was standing at the base of the wall. He was tall and muscular, with a strong jaw and an open, handsome face. His black hair was neat and short except for a lock in front that poofed upwards before falling across his forehead. He looked like a grown-up in the way that older children look like grown-ups to younger children, and Keith’s immediate reaction was to rue that he had been caught. 

His second reaction was to recognize the person grinning up at him. Keith had seen him wear a more serious expression when the Royal family had welcomed Keith and his mother to the palace. He hadn’t smiled or spoken then, but his identity had been clear by his resemblance and proximity to the King. 

Prince Takashi Shirogane waved up at Keith and whispered loudly, “Well done! Can you get me up there, too?” 

Keith, distracted by the thought of what his mother would say when she discovered his disobedience, wasn’t listening. His only chance was that the Prince had snuck out the same as him; it seemed likely, since he was wearing simple breeches and a tunic with no insignia instead of his elaborate court clothes. Keith dared to hope that the Prince hadn’t recognized him. 

“You’re Keith, right? Abhorsen Krolia’s kid?”

Blast it. 

“Did you follow me?” Keith hissed down at him. 

“A little,” the Prince admitted. “I saw you in the market and wanted to know what you were up to. It’s okay! I won’t tell anyone you were out here. Come on, give me a boost!” 

Keith couldn’t very well refuse a direct order from a Royal. The Abhorsen was technically equal to the rulers of the Old Kingdom, both of their lineages flowing back to the very creators of the Charter. But where the Abhorsen’s power lay in her mastery of Death and the Dead, the Royals had political power. Any of the other great bloodlines would be foolish not to show some deference. And besides, Keith was not Abhorsen yet. 

“Get ready,” Keith said as he began sketching the marks again. This time, when he drew the master mark, he threw it at the Prince’s feet. 

Prince Takashi was lifted skyward, arms windmilling, laughing as he caught the top of the buttress and joined Keith on the narrow ledge. He was too big to sit on it comfortably, so he perched sideways and held himself up on the heels of his hands. “That’s a good trick,” he said. “What was that mark you used? This one…” He traced the shape of the unfamiliar mark in the air with his finger. 

Keith recognized the mark he meant and summoned it, finding its place in the Charter than bound all things so that the drawn symbol hung in the air and pulsed with power. “Demoer,” he named it, as if he was reciting it to his mother at one of his lessons. “It’s an auxiliary mark, like punctuation. It connects the marks for lightness and climbing, makes them stronger together. See?” Keith added two more marks and let the three click into place like links in a chain. 

“That’s clever,” the Prince muttered, watching rapt. “Let me try…” 

“Hey!” yelled a voice from below. They both flinched, and the glowing Charter marks before them dissipated. A grown-up – a real grown-up this time, with a bushy beard twisted around a scowling mouth – was staring up at them crossly with his feet planted in the dirt. He wore the uniform of the city guard. “Get down here, both of you!” 

The pair slid down the slope of the buttress and tumbled into the dirt. There was no point in running. If the guard had seen them use that complex spell to ascend the wall, then he already knew who they were. Plenty of people knew a few Charter marks, even children, but there were no boys Keith’s age in Belisaere who could do what he had done.

“Now,” said the guard, crossing his arms and looming over Keith. “How did you boys get up there?”

So he hadn’t seen. Keith opened his mouth to confess, but the Prince stepped forward first. Try as he might, the guard was not tall enough to loom over him. Without missing a beat, the Prince dropped the educated polish from his voice and said, “Sorry, sir. Me and my little brother just wanted to see the view from the top.” 

Keith stood behind him, frozen. Sneaking was one thing, but he was no good at lying. 

The guard wasn’t impressed. He pointed at the steep face of the wall. “How?” he demanded. 

The Prince shrugged, an innocent smile on his face. “We climbed it,” he said. 

“You can’t climb that,” the guard scoffed. 

“We just did,” said the Prince. 

The guard looked at the wall, at the boys in front of him, and back to the wall. He clearly suspected some trickery. “Prove it,” he said. “Climb it again.” 

Without pause to protest, the Prince turned and ran at the wall. Keith expected him to bounce off the steep surface, but instead he wedged himself into the right angle between the buttress and the wall and began to climb. The soles of his shoes scrabbled at the stone and his hands groped for tiny irregularities to hold onto as he pulled himself up through sheer grit and determination. Keith winced as he reached the height where a fall would hurt. When he reached the height where a fall would likely break a bone or two, Keith held his breath. 

Near the top, his foot slipped and he skidded a foot and a half back down the incline. But he dug in with his fingers and managed to catch himself. He finished the climb with sweat on his face and blood on his hands. 

“Alright, alright. Down you come,” said the guard, his suspicion vanquished. The Prince rejoined Keith on the ground. The guard shook a finger at them once more and said, “The city boundary is off limits. Go monkey about someplace else!” before moving on and leaving them alone. 

The Prince beamed at Keith. Keith stared at his hands. They were raw from their slide down the stone. One of the fingernails was half missing, and two more were split with black bruises spreading beneath them. 

“Why didn’t you tell him who you are?” said Keith, drawing a Charter mark for quick healing. “He would have let you go.”

The Prince held up his hands and let Keith’s magic touch them. “He would have reported it to his guard captain, and it would have gotten back to my grandfather the King. Then Abhorsen would have found out. I couldn’t let you get in trouble, since it was my fault you got caught.”

Keith was speechless. People tended to avoid or fear him – the serious child with keys on his coat and death in his blood. No one but his own mother had ever gone out of their way to protect him. Finally, he stammered, “Thank you, your highness.”

The Prince grimaced. “Ugh, don’t start with that. I get enough of it at home.” 

Keith struggled to come up with an appropriate alternative. “Ta… Prince Takashi.”

The Prince laughed at his consternation, but not unkindly. “Listen, we’re friends now, right?” he said. “Call me Shiro.”

“Shiro,” said Keith, still a bit dazed by the turn of events. He had never had a friend before. 

Shiro glanced back toward the palace, the afternoon sun illuminating his profile like a painting. When he turned back to Keith, his eyes were shining with the promise of adventure. “Hey Keith,” he said, “have you ever flown a Paperwing?”


	2. Keith, saying goodbye

“Isn’t it a bit much?” 

Keith was back at the palace, as he had been two or three times per year since he was a little boy. The Abhorsen had audience with the Royals regularly, as she did with the Clayr and the Wallmakers, to maintain their good relationships. But this time, for the first time, Keith had come alone. Though the Abhorsen was busy with her other duties, Keith had insisted on being in Belisaere to see Shiro off. 

So he lounged in the entrance hall, watching a servant help Shiro put on an especially ornate set of plate armor. It had a lot of pieces that interlocked in specific ways, with clasps and buckles that Shiro couldn’t reach. They’d been at it for ten minutes. Keith had found a chair and was sitting on it the wrong way around, with his arms folded on top of the seat back, his long legs propped on their heels in front of him. 

“What?” said Shiro, looking over his shoulder. “You don’t like it?” 

“You’re going to take it off as soon as you get out of the city,” Keith pointed out. Full armor was good for battle, not for travelling. And the heavy ceremonial getup Shiro was wearing was good for neither. 

“You don’t know that,” said Shiro with a grin. “I might be planning on wearing this all the way to Estwael.” 

“I wouldn’t put it past her royal majesty to order you to do it,” Keith muttered. “Got to look good for the masses.” 

“As long as she lets me go, she can order me to make the whole journey naked for all I care.” 

Keith spared a moment to appreciate that image before replying, “I wouldn’t put that past her, either. After all the hoops she made you jump through just to join this delegation, I think she likes bossing you around.” 

“Sanda is the Queen. She’s allowed to boss me around,” Shiro reminded Keith. Then he pointed at the door and added, “And she’ll be out there when the delegation leaves, so try not to let her hear you talk like that.” 

“Your grandfather wanted you on the throne, not her,” said Keith under his breath. It had been five years since the old King had died, but the way Shiro’s cousin had slipped into the line of succession ahead of him still left a bitter taste in Keith’s mouth. 

“That’s treason,” said Shiro casually, “so _definitely_ don’t let her hear you talk like _that_.” 

Keith held up his hands in surrender. Of course he wouldn’t say anything in front of the Queen that might jeopardize this mission. It was Shiro’s first opportunity to represent the Old Kingdom in diplomatic talks with another nation. He’d been working toward it for so long. If it had been his grandfather on the throne instead of Sanda, it would have been his years ago. 

“Are there cute boys in Estwael?” said Keith, taking the hint and changing the subject.

“That’s not what I’ll be there for,” said Shiro with a chuckle. “But I’ll bring you back a cute girl, if you want.” 

Keith had never shown any interest in girls, but neither had he ever given reason to think he wasn’t interested, so Shiro went on assuming. Keith was careful not to let slip a hint of where his interest truly lay. Not because anyone else would care – it was no secret that Prince Takashi had courted men, so no one would think twice about the Abhorsen-in-Waiting doing the same. But because an embarrassing crush is easier to hide when everyone thinks of you as vaguely, abstractly heterosexual. 

“Please don’t kidnap anyone on my account,” he sighed. “Just bring yourself back safe.” 

“I’ll be spending the next six months in a series of audience chambers and banquet halls. Couldn’t be safer.” 

“You’re going there to negotiate a plan to end the violence in the border territories,” Keith pointed out. “Territories that you’re passing through to get there.”

“You think I can’t handle a few bandits?” said Shiro, pretending to be slighted. 

It was more than a few bandits, and Shiro knew it. The border with Estwael to the north and west had always been a remote part of the kingdom. Towns were sparse there, and royal forces spread thin, but major trade routes ran between the two kingdoms through the empty space. In the last decade or so, that had made it an attractive place for would-be warlords and upstart Free magic sorcerers to set up camp and attack the trading caravans. And there were rumors of even more sinister developments – a caravan had arrived in Yanyl last month claiming to have been attacked by ghosts, a creature that some were saying was a Mordicant had made it as far east as the Nailway, and recent accounts claimed that the victims of the violence who had been buried by the sides of the roads were not staying in their graves. 

“They say there are Dead out there, too,” said Keith. “You’re bringing the Wallmakers with you; maybe you should have a representative from the Abhorsen as well.”

That made Shiro laugh. “Nice try. Maybe when you’re older.” 

Keith rested his chin on the chair back and didn’t reply. As he’d grown, as Krolia had given him more responsibility and independence, he’d started to think that he was old enough that it didn’t matter anymore. But perhaps Shiro would always think of him as a little brother. 

His armor was complete. Shiro stretched his arms and bent his body from side to side, testing the fit and getting used to the weight. He gleamed in the torchlight. His pauldrons broadened his already-broad shoulders, and his cuirass mimicked the graceful slope of his chest. The gold tower of the Royals was emblazoned across his heart and on his back. He wore no helmet – the intent was for his handsome face to be recognized and admired. The ancient poems from the first age of the Charter with their radiant knights in armor forged of sunlight might have been describing him.

Shiro flexed his arms and posed for Keith. “How do I look?” he said.

“Like the shiniest toy soldier in the box,” said Keith, leaving his chair and getting ready to face what was through the palace doors. 

Shiro retrieved the blue surcoat with silver keys from where Keith had discarded it over a low bookcase, and tossed it at Keith’s face. “Got to look good for the masses,” he chuckled. 

Keith untangled it from around his head and pulled it on, smoothing it out and buckling his belt over the top just in time for the doors to open. 

They were hit with a wall of noise. It seemed that half of Belisaere was crammed into the palace courtyard, and they were all cheering. Keith almost turned and fled back inside, but Shiro was striding forward, so Keith set his jaw and followed. Shiro smiled and waved. Keith didn’t feel bad about not following suit. No one expected an Abhorsen-in-Waiting to be friendly. He played perfectly to type by walking half a step behind Shiro and looking unimpressed. 

The rest of the delegation was already there, seated on their horses and packed for the journey. There was a small contingent of royal guards, a few servants guiding their pack animals, and the ambassadors themselves. The only one Keith recognized was Samuel Holt, the Wallmaker. It was rare for Wallmakers to come this far north, but Sam’s family had lived in Belisaere for as long as Keith could remember. Five years ago, they’d supported Shiro’s claim to the throne. 

It made Keith feel a little better to see Sam there, holding the reins of a black stallion with an empty saddle, waiting to hand them off to Shiro. At least there would be one powerful mage watching out for him while he was gone. 

Keith tried to tamp down his swirling anxiety. Soon he would be returning to his mother’s house at the other end of the Ratterlin, far to the south. From there, it wouldn’t matter whether Shiro was in Belisaere or in Estwael. And six months was not so long to wait (though it was longer than Keith had ever gone without seeing Shiro since they’d met). But the distance made it different. All his life, even if he was far away, Keith had known where to find Shiro. Now he was going someplace Keith had never been, and could not follow. He might as well have been off to another planet. 

Shiro paused before mounting his horse. He turned back toward Keith, his right hand raised and open in front of his chest. Keith clasped it gratefully, and Shiro pulled him into an embrace. 

They were near enough now that no one could hear them as Keith murmured, “I’ll miss you.”

Keith could feel the whisper of Shiro’s breath in his hair as he replied, “I’ll be back by midsummer. Will you be here?”

“Of course,” said Keith. 

And then Shiro was gone, up on his horse and walking out of the courtyard to great applause, his entourage trailing behind him. Keith found himself drifting along with the crowd as they followed the delegation off the palace grounds and into the street. With one look at Keith’s surcoat, people gave him a wide berth. It made it easy to walk behind and alongside the last of the horses, weaving through the city with them, watching Shiro at the head of the column as he waved at the people who gathered by the street side to see him go by. 

Too soon, Shiro’s party reached the city limits and passed through the gatehouse on their way to the mainland and beyond. Keith left the road and approached the wall by the side of the gatehouse. He’d been chased away from this area more than once as a child, but now, older, wearing the silver keys of the Abhorsen, no one dared to scold him. 

He breathed Charter marks into his hand as he ran at the wall. A master mark launched him to the first landing, but he kept the rest of the marks coiled and ready, activating them again and again as he leaped from one tier to the next. Only when he floated onto the parapet at the top of the wall, making the guard there shout in surprise, did he let the string of marks unspool and dissolve harmlessly. 

He leaned on the parapet and caught his breath as he watched the road leading out of town. There was the column of horses. There was the black stallion in the lead. There was Shiro, gold towers glinting on steel plate, black hair catching the breeze. Keith wished he would look back just once, so he could see his face. But he didn’t. 

Keith watched until Shiro’s team disappeared into the late autumn mist rolling off the sea. 

He wouldn’t see him again for two years.


	3. A memory

Keith had never seen a Paperwing in person before, let alone flown one. He’d read about them – skyfaring ships made of resin-stiff paper with rigid wings instead of sails. The one in the Royals’ hangar at the top of one of the palace towers was black, with fierce yellow eyes painted on its prow. The first time Shiro sneaked him up to see it, he’d thought it looked flimsy. Then he’d run his hand over it, and felt the Charter magic layered throughout the structure. It didn’t matter what it was made of. It wasn’t the paper that gave it power. 

This one was made for one person, but could comfortably fit two. Young and stupid and not knowing any better, Keith had jumped inside and Shiro had shoved it out of the tower and into the air, leaping aboard as it fell. They might have both been smashed to bits on the battlements if they hadn’t worked together to whistle up a wind, but just in time they made it fly. 

And, bless the Charter, how it flew. 

For years after, stealing the Paperwing with Shiro was Keith’s favorite part of his visits to Belisaere. 

Sometimes they buzzed low over the city, basking in the disbelieving stares of the people below. Sometimes they took it inland to see the villages that dotted the countryside around the Sea of Saere. Once Keith insisted they fly it to the Clayr’s glacier but, though they soared high enough to see the ice-witches’ home glinting on top of the mountain, it was too far and too cold to make it there alone. 

This time, they steered the little craft out to sea. The winds were strong through the strait at Belis Mouth, but the boys had been practicing their technique for years and could handle the Paperwing through most weather. Shiro whooped with excitement as they rode the rough winds past Ilgard and toward the open ocean. 

The Paperwing responded to whistled Charter marks. A Charter mark could be drawn, spoken, hummed, sung, rung in a bell or summoned in a mind, but whistling was strongest for wind and flight. The sailors used whistled marks too, though sailing was easier than what Keith and Shiro were doing. Wind magic could be unpredictable, and the Paperwing also had a mind of its own and did not always listen to its pilot’s marks. So Shiro whistled low and steady, keeping a safe wind at their tail to give them lift and speed. And Keith trilled high, making little adjustments to keep their flight smooth with his deft control. 

Once they were above open water, with only the ocean visible ahead of them, Shiro called over his shoulder from where he was balancing with one foot up on the prow, “Hold the wind! Give me the helm!” 

Keith switched roles seamlessly, picking up the thread of Shiro’s magic where he had left it and continuing their steady tailwind. The Paperwing bucked and swerved a little in the ocean turbulence as Shiro took over the steering. 

When they’d met, because Shiro was older, Keith had assumed that he was the stronger mage. When they started working magic together, Keith soon realized that despite the age gap they were fairly evenly matched. Perhaps Keith’s natural talent had given him a head start, or Krolia’s lessons were stricter than those of the palace tutors. But then, over the months, Keith noticeably gained the edge. He tried to ignore the fact that he was progressing faster than Shiro was. 

It was most obvious in that moment of transition. As they traded roles, Keith’s tailwind was stronger than Shiro’s had been. And Shiro’s control was clumsier than Keith’s. 

Keith didn’t have time to be alarmed by the realization before Shiro flashed him a grin and stuck his fingers in his mouth to whistle an ear-splitting note. The eyes painted on the prow of the Paperwing glowed yellow and looked pleased at his audacious bravery. Keith gripped the sides of the fuselage for dear life. As Shiro unspooled a litany of Charter marks that Keith would never have dared to attempt, the Paperwing sped up, pointed its nose at the sky, and stalled out. 

For a moment they hung suspended in the air, motionless, all their momentum swallowed by the stall. Then they fell. The Paperwing twisted slowly on its axis like a leaf in the wind as it plummeted toward the waves. Keith kept his butt in the seat by clinging to it with both hands and both legs, but his hair whipped upwards and his heart was in his throat. 

Shiro held on with only two fingers hooked under the edge of the prow. The rest of his body floated free, one arm stuck out like a wing, legs kicking as if he were swimming in air. He laughed and laughed. He had the courage of youth then, and no sense of his own fragility. Pretending he was flying even as he was falling. 

Keith would remember him that way for a long time. 

When they were close enough to see the white tips on the waves, Shiro whistled the wind back up and pushed the nose of the Paperwing down toward the horizon. The whole craft jumped as its wings found lift and its fall was broken. Keith was bent over by the sudden shift, his head almost hitting the cross bar in front of him. Shiro’s feet found the deck again and, knees bent against the strain, he surfed the Paperwing back into the sky. 

They continued east until Belisaere was a smudge on the horizon. There they found a craggy little rock – not big enough to be called an island, but just flat enough to land the Paperwing – and made themselves comfortable atop it. Shiro sprawled out, supine and long-limbed. Keith hugged his knees to his chest and watched the waves break against the base of the rock. 

“That was a neat trick,” he told Shiro.

Shiro’s eyes were closed, his face turned toward the sun. “It’s simple,” he said. “You just have to have the guts to commit to it. I probably could have let us fall farther, we still had some space between us and the water when we pulled up. Next time.” 

“Do you think I’m ready to try that?”

Shiro opened one eye to stare at Keith. He raised his eyebrows. “Sure, you are. You’re better than me,” he said.

“No, I’m not,” Keith tried to protest. 

“Keith, it’s okay,” said Shiro, closing his eyes again. “You’re a strong Charter mage. It’s a good thing. I’m proud of you.” 

He sounded unconcerned, but Keith was frustrated enough for the both of them. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “You know the marks as well as me. You work just as hard. You’re a Royal. You should be stronger than me.” 

Shiro shrugged. “Maybe you’re just more talented.” 

“I overheard Sanda talking to the King. She said you’d never sit on the throne because you’re not a true Royal.” Keith hadn’t meant to bring it up, but he felt that it must be connected. This time, both of Shiro’s eyes snapped open. “Is there something wrong with you? You can tell me if there is. I know about being different.” 

Shiro sat up so that he was level with Keith, perched on the edge of the rock. “Can you keep a secret?” he said. 

Keith nodded. 

He reached out, brushed Keith’s bangs out of the way, and pressed two fingers to the center of his forehead. It was a traditional gesture, common among village mages when welcoming an outsider, among court officials when confirming a visitor’s identity, and among the people who lived in the wild borderlands when checking to make sure someone was truly human and not some Free magic construct or revenant. It was a greeting between children of the Charter. It could also be a challenge, to prove that one’s Charter mark was pure. 

Keith knew from the soft tingle in his skull that his mark was responding to Shiro’s touch. It glowed, a portal to the unstained Charter that flowed through him. Shiro could read every mark of it, if he wanted to. 

Shiro bent his head, inviting Keith to return the touch. It was rare for a Royal to offer such an intimate gesture to anyone but their own bloodline, but Keith slid his fingers under the poofy lock of hair that hid Shiro’s brow. 

He flinched away with a gasp. 

Shiro had no Charter mark. It was unthinkable. Anyone, even a backwoods village mage, could baptize someone in the Charter. Only the most unfortunate, remote, or desolate failed to gain a mark. Shiro was a Royal of Belisaere. He would have been baptized within minutes of his birth. 

Keith couldn’t stop himself from putting his whole palm on Shiro’s head and smoothing his hair away. There was the outline of a mark on his forehead where the wood ash of a baptism had sunk into his skin. But no light pulsed through it. Keith tapped it twice more with his finger. It didn’t respond. 

A failed baptism. A broken mark. On a _Royal_. Keith’s mind reeled. No wonder his family didn’t trust him on the throne. Without a connection to the Charter, how could he rule a Charter-bound kingdom? 

“But…” Keith stammered. “You can work the Charter! I’ve seen you!”

As if to prove it, Shiro lazily drew Anet and flicked the little bolt of force downwards, chipping off a piece of the rock below them. “I can,” he said. “I’m not baptized in the Charter, but the Charter is in my blood. We’re both from the great bloodlines – it’s in yours too. See?” 

He held up his hand. Keith clasped it, and Shiro pulled him close so that their hands were pressed between their chests and their chins rested on each other’s shoulders. Keith could feel Shiro’s pulse in his fingertips and his heartbeat against the back of his hand. Shiro was right. Even without their Charter marks, Keith could feel the Charter flowing between them. He could easily feel it in himself, like a steady stream that he could tilt to make a waterfall of power. In Shiro it was muted, like trying to peer through smoky glass, but what little he could perceive was roiling and chaotic like a complex spell without a master mark to hold it together. 

“How do you control it?” Keith whispered, not letting go. 

“It’s not easy,” Shiro admitted. His voice was so close to Keith’s ear that it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “It takes a long time. Everything I learn, I have to learn twice. How to do it. And how to do it without a mark of my own.” 

And still he was recognized as the golden boy of Belisaere. Keith marveled at how powerful Shiro might have been without his disability.

Shiro’s grip on his hand loosened, and Keith reluctantly let him go. 

“A baptism isn’t just for power, it’s for protection,” Keith pondered. That was why it was so important that he and Krolia have healthy marks. It sealed their spirits to their bodies so that they could walk in Death without being overcome. Keith waited for Shiro to explain how his Royal blood also protected him. 

“Yes,” said Shiro sheepishly. “I don’t have that.” 

“But then any Free magic – sorcery, curses, anything not bound by the Charter…” Death. The Book. The bells. “You have no defense against it.” 

“That’s right.” 

“Then why are you friends with _me?!_ ” Keith blurted. “I’m a necromancer!” 

Shiro just laughed. “You’re not a necromancer. You’re an Abhorsen.” 

All Keith could do was gawk. He’d spent his life studying the Book of the Dead, so he knew what Free magic could do to a soul. He knew how to twist a spirit into servitude. How to raise a corpse as a Hand. How to bind a ghost on this side of Death with no body to harbor it and no final rest to be found. How to build a monster out of blood and clay and power it with stolen souls. Of course he would never do such things; Abhorsen’s job was to stop that kind of evil. But he knew better than most that death was nothing to fear compared to what might come after. 

Shiro stood and dusted off the seat of his trousers. “The sun’s getting low. Let’s go back.” 

As Keith climbed back aboard the Paperwing and whistled up a westward wind, he resolved to be worthy of Shiro’s trust. For years he’d been content to take Shiro’s friendship and the privileges that came with it. This was his chance to be of service. 

If the Charter would not protect Shiro, then he would. For as long as they were both alive. 

And after, too.


	4. Keith, cheating death

The creature shambled toward them, splashing and sloshing its way through the river with misshapen limbs. It had no face, just hollows in its shadow-stuff where features might once have been. It rolled forward with a lurching gait that made it hard to tell arms from legs. Despite its clumsiness it was surprisingly fast. 

“That’s close enough,” said Krolia. Her feet were planted wide. She leaned to resist the current swirling around her thighs. Her arms were crossed over her surcoat studded with silver keys. She looked strange without the brown stripe of her bell bandolier down her chest. 

The bells hung heavy on Keith instead. There were seven, the littlest by his shoulder and the largest near his hip, and each was encased in its own leather holster that stilled all sound. He ran his fingers over the tiny Ranna and the unpredictable Mosrael before settling on the third bell, Kibeth – the walker, which controlled movement. He unclipped the cover and drew it free, taking care not to let the clapper touch metal. 

Only when he was ready did he swing it side to side four times. Each peal of the bell produced a different note. As soon as the music reached the creature, it lurched to a stop. Though its feet were stuck to the riverbed, it stretched and reached its misshapen arms toward Keith with a piteous gurgling. 

Dead creatures like this one were drawn to Keith and Krolia when they walked in the river of Death. Their living souls shined like beacons compared to the washed-out colors and misty air here. The Dead would devour them, if they could, or hitch a ride back through the gates and into Life. They lurked in the shadows and behind the mist, all around. This was the only one desperate enough to attack two Abhorsens. The rest kept their distance. 

“Good,” said Krolia. “Now bind it to your will.” 

Keith replaced Kibeth and reached lower on the bandolier to draw the second-to-last bell. Saraneth was a dependable tool, especially for the kind of work Krolia did. Keith swung it, and the single note it produced calmed the creature’s frantic movements. It settled into the river, a limbless blob of shadow now, and awaited Keith’s orders. 

“Let’s see if we can talk to it,” said Krolia. This wasn’t part of a usual cleansing. Abhorsen’s job was to send corrupted souls like this one onwards to their final rest, not to chat with them. This was a test. 

Keith traded Saraneth for Dyrim, the fourth bell. He took a deep breath before letting it sound. Dyrim controlled speech, which seemed harmless, especially compared to what the other bells were capable of. But it could be subtle. Without perfect control, any of the bells could have effects unintended by their ringer. 

Dyrim’s clear voice opened a slit across the front of where the creature’s face ought to be, and a shadowy tongue licked newly-formed lips. It gurgled louder, and made a few sounds like barking, raspy laughter. 

Krolia clicked her tongue and said, “Its mind is gone. Keith?” 

He’d known this was coming. He unclipped the fifth bell on the bandolier and drew it so that he held Dyrim in one hand, and Belgaer in the other. Belgaer was the thinking bell. It could restore broken thought patterns and lost memories. Simple enough, and useful. But it was also the trickiest of the bells. Memory was a delicate thing. It could be warped, confused, or taken out of context. And Belgaer liked to take advantage of a careless wielder to do unexpected things with a mind. 

Keith forced himself to be patient. He rehearsed the movements in his mind a dozen times before he carefully rang the bells, each in a different intricate pattern. Dyrim and Belgaer, rung together, would let him talk to a mind that had long since died. But only if both were rung perfectly. 

Dyrim sang a sweet note. 

Belgaer screeched so high-pitched and loud that Krolia uncrossed her arms and clapped her hands over her ears. Keith stilled the bell by pressing the metal against his coat, but it was too late. The creature’s lips curled back to reveal gleaming teeth, and it lunged. What little piece of humanity it had been clinging to was erased. Now it was only made up of hunger and rage. 

Keith stumbled. His hands wanted to throw Charter magic up to protect himself, but they were still holding the bells. While he hesitated, the creature broke its bonds and was on him. 

Just before its teeth found Keith’s throat, Krolia stepped forward and drew her sword. The creature’s momentum made it run itself onto the blade. Where it protruded from the creature’s back, dripping patches of darkness into the water like blood, Charter symbols glowed from deep inside the metal. The creature screamed as it was burned from the inside out. 

It fell back with a splash, wounded. Before it could think about attacking again, Krolia waved her hand and spoke a harsh litany that charged the air with Free magic. The river swirled around the creature and sped up, carrying the defeated soul through the next gate and into Death’s deeper precincts. Weakened as it was, it would ride the current all the way through the Ninth Gate to its final rest. 

Krolia didn’t need to scold him. She just held out her hand. Keith replaced the bells, secured their fastenings, and returned his mother’s bandolier. 

“Let’s go,” she sighed. They were in the Fourth Precinct of Death, and it was a long walk back through the gates and into the living world. 

Krolia waded toward the wall of mist that was the gateway back to the Third Precinct, closer to home. As she chanted the Free magic spell that would open the gate, Keith turned the other way and looked deeper into Death. The creature Krolia had banished was already out of sight. 

Most dead souls were shepherded peacefully by the river through all nine precincts and beyond. But some fought the current, or were trapped or delayed before they could finish the journey. Those ended up like that creature, or worse. And once a soul was corrupted by the river it was almost impossible to restore them to who they’d been in life. 

Keith wondered how much quicker the river would turn a soul not protected by a Charter mark. 

Shiro’s group had never arrived in Estwael. Other caravans reported seeing their rotting horses near the road, the golden towers of Belisaere still visible on their bloody tack. A few headless corpses in the armor of royal guards were recovered, too. No trace of Shiro or the other ambassadors was ever found. 

Officially, they were missing. Now, two years later, almost everyone accepted that they were dead. Some whispered that it was Shiro’s carelessness that had led them into danger. 

Death was a big place, and it didn’t match up perfectly with locations in the living world. Looking for a single soul lost in its waters would be like trying to find a certain grain of sand on a beach. But that didn’t stop Keith from scanning the eyes that watched him from deep in the fog and trying to decide if he recognized any of them. 

“Keith.” Krolia had finished her spell. There was a door-sized archway in the misty veil of the Third Gate, and she was beckoning Keith through. He spared one more glance backwards. Krolia called him again, softer this time, “He’s gone, sweetie.” 

Keith turned away from the Dead and followed his mother upstream into Life. 

His body was cold when he returned to it. As he opened his eyes he broke the delicate layer of ice that had formed between his eyelids, and as he shifted out of his kneeling position to stretch his stiff limbs frost crackled on his clothes. Krolia was kneeling opposite him. She shook her head, and tiny ice crystals flew out of her hair. 

Each of them was on a wide, textured stepping stone in the middle of the river Ratterlin, at its fastest point right before it went over a waterfall. The water roared around them, much brighter and more honest in its violence than the sneaky pull of the river they’d just come from. There was no safer place to practice walking in Death. The running water ensured that nothing could follow them back and survive. 

“I’m off,” said Krolia, shouting over the boom of the waterfall as she picked up the rucksack beside her. This had been a final lesson before her journey south. The Wallmakers had requested her presence to deal with some nuisance near the border with Ancelstierre. Krolia had deemed it minor enough not to bring Keith with her. “Take care of the house while I’m gone.” 

They embraced across the gap between the stones. Then Krolia paused. She narrowed her eyes at Keith, appraising him. “Here,” she said. She unbuckled the sword from her belt and handed it across to him. Abhorsen’s sword. Ancient and Charter-blessed. It was as unique and powerful a weapon as the bells. More so, because while Abhorsens in the past had made their own bells, there had only ever been one such sword. Keith took it reverently. Krolia smiled. “You might need it.” 

She leaned across the roaring water one more time to kiss his hair where it fell over his temple. Then she turned and bounded across the stepping stones toward land. There was a stable on the bank with horses tended by ghostly Charter sendings. She would ride one south and arrive at the Wall by nightfall. 

Keith hopped the stones in the other direction. It was a treacherous path, but he had walked it many times. It was the way home. 

Abhorsen’s House stood on an island in the middle of the river, on the precipice of the waterfall. It was a perfect stronghold, wrapped in so many layers of protective spells that they had to leave its bounds just to enter Death. It had been a safe and beautiful, if lonely, place to grow up. Even lonelier these last two years. And now, with Krolia away, he would be completely alone. 

As he passed through the gate and into the garden, he was greeted by a sardonic voice. “Ah, you’re back. Pity. You’d been gone so long, I thought the Dead might have eaten you.” 

Well, not completely alone. 

A wolf lay in the center of the garden, looking like they had just been napping in the sun. Their fur was so white that it was almost a pale blue. They could take many forms, but they seemed to favor the wolf when Keith was around. When he was a toddler Keith had named them Kosmo. In fact, the creature was one of the eldritch, powerful relicts that had been born out of the ancient Charter. But they refused to tell Keith their true name, so they were Kosmo for now. 

“Thanks for your concern,” Keith muttered. 

Kosmo nodded their head toward the sword that Keith was attaching to his belt. “Seems Abhorsen trusts you more with a blade than with the bells. Still struggling with your Free magic? The Charter will only take you so far.” 

Keith ignored them. He knew from experience that arguing with them was a pointless and frustrating exercise. 

Instead, he entered the house. It was a small mansion with three stories, an observatory tower, and more bedrooms than he and Krolia had ever needed. He supposed past Abhorsens must have had bigger families, or more visitors. The kitchen was staffed by Charter sendings – humanoid automatons made of Charter magic – and one of them met him at the door with a plate of hot food. He took it upstairs to the library. 

The library was Keith’s favorite place in the house. The mahogany shelves cast the room in a red light, and the thousands of books making up the centuries-old collection ensured that he was never bored. The only thing that made him uneasy was the standing case in the center of the room. Locked under a glass cover and protected by magical wards was a book bound in green leather and closed with silver clasps. 

The Book of the Dead. It held all the secrets of necromantic knowledge from the ages before the Charter, when Free magic ruled. He’d been reading it bit by bit under Krolia’s tutelage since he was old enough to sound out the words. Some of it he didn’t remember – the magic of the Book erased the forbidden knowledge from his mind until he needed it. Some of it he only wished he could forget. 

He wasn’t supposed to read it without Krolia supervising. But Krolia wasn’t here. 

As he’d done at every opportunity for the past two years, Keith pressed the Charter marks for disarming and opening into the latch on the glass case. It popped open. Unlocking the Book itself was harder. It required a Free magic spell which tasted like vinegar in Keith’s mouth as he spoke it, but finally the silver clasp responded by snapping apart. 

He curled up in an armchair and balanced the big, heavy Book on his knees. He thumbed through familiar pages, his eyes scanning over the graphic illustrations and the bone-chilling text. Looking for something, anything he might have overlooked or misremembered. Any reference to how to tell if a certain soul had passed into Death, and whether it was still there, and how to find it. 

All he found was fresh fuel for his nightmares. After hours of staring, the ink on the pages seemed to twist and curl into new shapes. Keith didn’t bother trying to decipher them. His tired mind was a blank, and it sank into the seductive dance of the letters on the page. They didn’t look like words anymore. They flowed like water. Like the dark river on the other side of the veil. He leaned his head close to the paper, and he thought he could hear it whispering to him. 

A sharp pain made him yelp and slam the Book closed. Kosmo was sitting in front of his chair, their teeth still on Keith’s ankle. Keith fumbled with the clasp on the Book’s cover, closed it, and sealed it with a string of Charter marks. Only then did Kosmo spit him out. 

“Stupid child,” they growled as they stalked out of the library and left Keith alone. 

\-----

He was in a forest, and it was night. The air was cool. Pine needles crunched under his feet. The moon, barely a sliver in the sky, cast a pale light that was almost outclassed by the stars around it. It filtered through the trees and made the green branches look blue. 

This was a dream. Keith could always tell when he was dreaming. 

There was a figure in silhouette where the darkened forest thinned out and the moon-and-starlight crept through a little stronger. Keith wandered in that direction. His feet seemed to float over the hard-packed ground and the cold night air didn’t bother him, because this was a dream. As he drew nearer, he could see that the figure was a person on a horse, and they were plodding very slowly along a deer track that wound through the trees. 

The horse was lame and it held its tired head low. The rider didn’t look much better. He was slumped in the saddle, barely holding the reins in one shaking hand. A long cloak covered him from neck to knees. Under it, his shape looked wrong somehow. Lopsided. Hurt. As Keith caught up and drew level with the limping horse, he could see that the man’s face was obscured by long, dirty hair. Most of it was black. A lock in front was the same color as the moonlight. 

Keith called out to him. He didn’t answer. This was a dream. 

They reached the edge of the forest. The light was cleaner here, and the scenery opened up to reveal a grassy cliff overlooking the sea. The man on the horse looked up for the first time, exhausted relief showing on his scarred face as his hair fell out of the way. 

“Shiro?” Keith gasped. 

This was a dream. 

But this was not how Keith dreamed of Shiro, not for the last two years. In his dreams, they were children in Belisaere. In his dreams, Shiro was returning triumphant. In his dreams, Shiro died while cursing Keith’s name for failing to save him. In his dreams, he walked in Death and met monsters with Shiro’s eyes. His dreams were his memories replayed and his hopes and fears made flesh. They were not this starlit tableau – quiet, confusing, and somehow more real than any other dream he’d had. 

Was this a dream? 

Keith shouted Shiro’s name and grabbed at him. But Shiro didn’t so much as flinch at his voice, and his grabbing did nothing more than rustle the cloak like a gentle wind. Shiro kept staring over Keith’s head, his expression hardening into determination as he urged his poor horse forward again. 

Keith turned to see what Shiro was looking at. There, where the land met the sea, awash in starlight, was the gleaming skyline of Belisaere. 

This was not a dream. 

Keith woke in his bed at Abhorsen’s House, gasping. The room was so cold that his breath made clouds. He was instantly shivering. Kosmo was curled up at the foot of his bed, but they weren’t much help. They were heavier than they looked, but not warm at all. 

“Nightmare?” said Kosmo around a yawn, sounding more annoyed than sympathetic. 

“That wasn’t a dream,” said Keith, more to himself than to Kosmo. He kicked the covers off and ran to the window. Outside, a crescent moon was setting, a sliver two nights away from being new. It matched the one that he’d seen casting light over the forest and the sea and the city towers. “I saw Shiro. He’s in Belisaere.” 

Kosmo scoffed. “Prince Takashi? He’s dead.” 

“NO, HE’S NOT!” Keith shouted, and even Kosmo looked surprised at his intensity. “I saw him. It wasn’t a dream.” 

Kosmo was the last one Keith expected to humor this kind of outburst, so he was shocked when they shrugged their furry shoulders and said, “If you’re sure. All the great bloodlines have bred to each other at some point in history, so perhaps you have a touch of the Clayr’s Sight about you. Or maybe the Book has gotten into your head. In any case, you believe it to be true. What will you do about it?” 

“I’ll go to him,” said Keith. His heart sank as he thought of the journey ahead. The idea of being on the road for almost three weeks, all the while wondering if what he had seen was true, was agonizing. And if it was true, that meant almost three weeks before he could be at Shiro’s side. Maybe he could cut it to two weeks if he pushed hard and traded for fresh horses at every inn and outpost…

“Then you’d better take the Paperwing,” said Kosmo. 

Keith froze, his train of thought halted mid-word. “We don’t have a Paperwing.” 

“Yes, we do,” Kosmo sighed. “Abhorsen never told you about it because she knows how much you liked to go joyriding in the Royals’ Paperwing, and she didn’t want you to crash hers.” 

Keith was too distracted to be offended. With a Paperwing, if he left at first light, he could be in Belisaere by sundown. “Show me,” he ordered. 

By the time he was packed and ready to go, the sun was beginning to rise. Kosmo had the sendings haul the Paperwing out of a secret hangar below the waterfall and set it up on a platform by the eastern wall of the House. It was painted with an iron-based pigment that had turned it the color of rust, but its eyes were as yellow and fierce as the ones he remembered from his flights with Shiro. 

He said goodbye to Kosmo. The sendings pushed the Paperwing off the platform. As it fell, Keith wetted his lips and felt his heart surge as he whistled the marks he hadn’t used in years. The Paperwing swooped through the waterfall’s mist and arced up into the sky. 

Long distance travel was simpler than the stunts he and Shiro used to pull. He soared the Paperwing high and sat back to let it glide. He only had to give it the occasional whistle to keep the wind at his back and the vessel on course. 

He made a line for Callibe and stayed on the oceanward side of Mount Aunden. He kept the Westway under him as it turned north toward Orchyre, but as the sun sank low it became difficult to see the road below. Clouds rolled in off the water and the high air became unbearably cold. Rather than waste his strength on magic to warm himself, he let the Paperwing drop out of the clouds and within sight of the road. 

He was nearly at the north side of the Winding Post peninsula when a flash of light below him caught his eye. He tore his gaze away from the horizon, where he was hoping to soon spot Belisaere. The Paperwing didn’t like flying in the dark and he wanted to reach the city before being forced to make camp. 

The light was still flashing when he leaned over the edge of the Paperwing to peer at it. Green sparks shot up from the side of the Westway in a dancing blossom that must have been ten feet tall. They illuminated the shape of a person down there, jumping and waving at him. 

The Paperwing was as tired from the flight as Keith was, and it gladly swooped down for a landing. Keith vaulted the side of the vessel to run toward the sparks just as someone ran out from behind them to meet him. 

“Abhorsen!” shouted the voice of Samuel Holt’s daughter, the Wallmaker girl. “Krolia, is it you?” 

“Pidge, it’s Keith!” he panted. They were close enough now that he could recognize her face in the guttering green light. “Is it real? Is he back?” 

She didn’t bother asking who, or how he knew. She just nodded. “Yeah, since last night. But Keith, everything is messed up. The palace is in pandemonium. Everyone’s split into factions. The Royals aren’t letting anyone know he’s alive, and Sanda locked him up! I just managed to slip out by disguising myself as one of the kitchen boys. I was going to go south and get the Abhorsen, but then I saw your Paperwing…” 

Sanda. Keith’s hands curled into fists. Back when Shiro had disappeared, when people were speaking ill of him, she had encouraged the rumors. Now Shiro was back, and instead of a hero’s welcome she’d given him a cage. 

“Mom’s not here,” said Keith. “It’s up to us. We’re going to bust him out.”


	5. A memory

Even when Keith was in Belisaere to visit, Shiro was still a prince. He still had responsibilities to attend to. As he got older and his grandfather got sicker, his duties increased and his free time dwindled. He always made time for Keith. But when Keith was alone, he sought out people and places in the palace that he could tolerate to pass the time. 

That was how he met the Wallmaker’s daughter. Her name was Katherine Holt, but she didn’t answer to that. She would grudgingly accept Katie. She called herself Pidge. 

As a Wallmaker and a resident of the palace, Pidge had her own workshop. She kept it spectacularly messy. Vats of bubbling liquids spattered the walls with their viscous colors. Tools were stacked on the shelves and strewn on the floor, looking like instruments of torture – metal molds and filers, wooden dowels, coils of twine and lengths of wire, obsidian burrs, and tiny hand-carving tools of various shapes that looked like they were made of bone. There were two small braziers in the room, one of which was upside down with stained clothes hung on its upturned feet and the other of which was rusting forgotten in a corner. There were five fires burning, heating the vats, but they were free-floating flames fueled by Charter magic instead of coals. On every available surface she had stacked blocks of multicolored wax. 

Pidge hovered over one of the bubbling vats, her face lit by the Charter-flame from below. She held a length of string doubled over in her fist, and she was dipping it in and out of the hot wax. Every dip coated a fresh layer onto the two cylinders. Each time they emerged, she spun her hand around them and chanted. Charter marks sank into the wax. They painted power in between the layers, to be released the next time the wax melted. 

Wallmakers were a strange bunch. No other bloodline could touch their mastery of the Charter. Perhaps the Royals had more raw power, and the Clayr and the Abhorsen had specialized skills that the Wallmakers lacked. But the Wallmakers were not interested in ruling, nor Seeing, nor walking in Death. They toyed with reality. They built things, like the incredible Wall which gave them their name on the border between the magical Old Kingdom and the non-magical Ancelstierre. They innovated, using marks for purposes no other mage would dream up. The tinkers of the Charter. 

Many Wallmakers liked to use artifacts to channel their power or store their spells. The Holts favored candles. 

When Pidge decided that the twin tapers she was making were thick enough, she dismissed the Charter marks that had been dancing around her and hung the string over a rack to let the candles cool and harden. She grabbed a different candle off a shelf – a big, molded one – and flopped onto a cushion on the floor to begin whittling away at it. Occasionally she would whisper a Charter mark into the divots she carved into the wax. The spell was as intricate as the design. 

Keith liked watching her work. The fires under her vats warmed the room, and he could feel a different sort of warmth pulsing off the magic she was weaving. It was a more pleasant place to study than the room they’d given him and Krolia, and he was less likely to be interrupted here than in any of the more public areas. So he’d found a comfortable chair in the corner of Pidge’s workshop, spread his notes out on his knees, and only glanced up every now and then to appreciate her craftsmanship. 

Pidge never seemed to mind the intrusion. And Keith appreciated that she never forced him to talk to her. 

“You can stay here either way, but are you hiding from your mom?” 

Almost never. 

“No,” said Keith, nestling deeper into the chair and trying to block her view of him with his notes. “She’s busy, and I’m doing the work she set me.” 

“Then who are you hiding from?” The pattern she was carving was becoming evident. One side of the candle was a series of interlocking geometric shapes. The other side was a blooming flower. 

“Everyone else,” Keith muttered. 

“And you wonder why you don’t have any friends,” Pidge sighed. 

“I don’t have any friends because people don’t like me.” 

“They’d like you better if you were nice to them.” 

Keith didn’t have time for a comeback before a knock on the door made them both turn their heads. Pidge had propped the door open some time ago to vent the fumes from her cauldrons. A boy wearing a helmet that was too big for him poked his head inside. 

“Hey, Pidge,” said Lance. “Your mom sent me. She wants you to remember that you have a dress fitting in an hour.” 

Pidge threw her head back toward the ceiling and groaned loudly. 

“I’m just the messenger!” Lance said as he sidled into the room with his hands raised disarmingly. His movements were fluid and casual, his face bearing a smirk that Keith supposed girls must find cute. “But seriously. One hour. Or your mom will kill us both.” 

Then Lance happened to glance at the shadows in the corner and finally noticed Keith, scrunched up in his chair. Keith tried not to look at him. Lance’s shoulders tightened and he stared. When Keith couldn’t stand the gawking anymore he lowered his notes and said, “What? You want me to come get fitted for a dress, too?” 

Lance flinched, then he recovered and his smirk spread. “You wish, spooky boy,” he said. 

“Stop calling me that,” Keith growled. 

“Or what?” Lance waved his hands in big circles, mimicking the casting of Charter magic even though he had never cast a mark in his life. “Or you’ll spook me? Huh? You gonna call up a ghost with your bells to haunt me?” He danced around the room, slicing the air with his hands, perhaps fighting off an imaginary ghost. Pidge laughed. 

Keith didn’t want to play this game. He raised his notes again to hide his reddening face. Apparently satisfied that he’d won the interaction, Lance soon left. 

Once Keith was sure he was gone, he pointed at the door and glowered at Pidge. “See?” he said. 

Pidge shrugged. “Give him a break. His dad’s a palace guard. Our parents are from Charter bloodlines. You just freak him out, that’s how he deals with it.”

“I hate it,” Keith mumbled. 

“At least he doesn’t avoid you, like everybody else does,” said Pidge in a tone that made Keith wonder if she had some experience with being avoided. 

“Easy for you to say. He’s nice to you.” 

“He might be nice to you, too, if you were nice to him.” 

Keith sputtered for a second before protesting, “I never did anything to him!” 

Pidge didn’t look up from her candle. “Including being nice to him.” 

“Well, he’s not special. I’m not nice to anybody.”

Pidge couldn’t stop a mischievous grin from spreading across her face as she answered quietly, “You’re nice to the Prince.”

“I’m leaving,” said Keith.

Pidge glanced at him, still in his chair, making no move to collect his papers that were strewn all over his lap. “No, you’re not,” she said. “Besides, you have to watch me test this out.” She put away her carving and pulled one of the cooled tapers down from where they were hanging. With a huge pair of shears she trimmed the bottom flat and the wick short. She waved it at Keith proudly. 

“What does it do?” said Keith. 

“It’s a signal flare!” said Pidge. “Look…” She held the candle up to her lips and blew on the wick. An orange-and-yellow light guttered in the wind of her breath, then resolved to a happy little flame. She put the lit candle down on the floor in the center of the room. 

In seconds, it began crackling and spitting like a pan of oil as it shot off bright green sparks. They fell in a pretty little pattern, like a flower a hand’s breadth wide. Soon the flower grew to a foot across, then two, then four. Keith tucked his feet to prevent sparks from landing on his shoes. Pidge backed up against the wall. The flower kept growing. 

“Oh,” said Pidge. “I should have done this outside.” 

Keith put his rolled-up notes under one arm and Pidge under the other, and dove into the hallway. A barrage of green sparks pursued them. They hissed as they flew through the doorway and put themselves out on the cold stone floor. Inside the workshop was a whirling, flashing blaze from wall to wall. 

Pidge reached out with a pointed toe and kicked the door closed. “Okay! Good first trial! We’ll come back to that later. I’m hungry. You hungry?” And she scampered off in the direction of the kitchens. 

Keith pushed his singed notes back into order, shook the smoke out of his hair, and followed her.


	6. Pidge, aiding and abetting

Pidge huddled over the delicate little jade-colored candle, sheltering its flame from the cold night air. It had taken her a long time to make, and it could only be activated once. Inside a shaky paper canoe flying through the damp autumn breeze was not the ideal location for it. The Paperwing dipped and shuddered, blowing a gust of wind across the stern where Pidge tended her candle. She glared at Keith. 

Sensing the daggers being stared into his back, Keith looked over his shoulder. “I can’t help it!” he hissed. “The Paperwing isn’t supposed to fly at night.” 

“Well, this candle is the only reason the guards haven’t raised the alarm yet, so maybe have a talk with your Paperwing and ask it how bad it doesn’t want to get shot down!” 

They flew unnoticed over the palace grounds. The candle cast a web of Charter magic more intricate and powerful than any mage could cast on a whim. Invisibility was a trick that required multiple mages working in tandem, or in this case one mage pouring her power and focus into a wax mold for months and months. 

She’d spent her adolescence making creative, powerful candles like this one with the vague sense that one day she would use them for something important. Well, yesterday that something had begun. As soon as she’d heard that Shiro was back, she knew nothing could keep her from speaking to him. He was the only person who could give her a hint of what had happened to her father after he’d disappeared two years ago. Her father who had recognized her spark and encouraged her and taught her to make the candles that she now carried in the big travel bag at her feet. Losing him had torn the heart out of her family. Even if he was dead, knowing and grieving would be better than the two years of waiting she’d endured. 

She managed to keep the candle lit as they skimmed the battlements on their way to the largest garden, on the eastern side of the grounds. No one was supposed to know the Prince was in Belisaere, let alone where he was being held. But on her way out of the palace Pidge had managed to overhear that he was being taken to the reservoir that contained the Great Charter Stones. The garden was one of the few places on the grounds with enough open space to land the Paperwing safely, and it had an entrance to the reservoir nearby. 

Keith set the Paperwing down between two hedgerows and hopped to the ground. Pidge left her candle behind to follow him. It would keep the Paperwing hidden for as long as it burned, but now that they were outside its sphere they would be visible to anyone who happened to come along. 

“There are guards everywhere,” Pidge whispered. Even here in the garden, she could hear them moving around the perimeter and through the trees. She had never seen so many mobilized at once. 

“I’ll take care of it,” said Keith, his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

Pidge smacked his hand away. “You can’t hurt anybody!” she hissed. “These are people we know!” 

Keith looked like he was about to snap back at her, but then he sighed and reached into his surcoat instead. He pulled out a shiny row of panpipes. The set of seven was about the size of his palm. “Fine,” he said. “Better?”

Pidge recognized them from years ago. The Abhorsen wielded seven bells; the pipes held a weaker form of the same power. The Free magic of necromancy was terrifying, and in her studies Pidge had only ever skimmed the surface of what it could do. But Keith’s pipes, used properly, were less lethal than a sword. She nodded. 

A nearby rustling of the hedges put them both on alert. “Halt!” said an unfamiliar voice as the rustling drew closer. “Who’s there?” 

As the guard burst through the hedgerow, Pidge prepared to whip a protective string of Charter marks around them both. Keith was faster. He put the panpipes to his lips and blew into the shortest one – Ranna, Pidge remembered. It sounded a sweet and soothing note. Even though Keith wasn’t directing its song at her, Pidge couldn’t keep herself from yawning. The guard barely had time to register surprise before he toppled to the ground, fast asleep. 

Pidge gave him a thumbs-up, and they got moving. 

They skirted the edge of the park, keeping to the shadows and staying quiet. Twice more, guards noticed them or strayed too close to their path. Keith knocked them out cold with a song from his pipes. 

Finally, they had a clear path to the cave entrance that contained the staircase down to the reservoir. Keith dashed out of the bushes, Pidge right behind him. At the same time, another figure left the shelter of the trees across the way. A gangly young man, wearing a similar uniform to the guards they’d already taken out. Keith skidded to a halt and got ready to make this one sleep, too.

Pidge ran between the two of them, holding up her hands. “Wait!” she said to Keith. “It’s Lance!” 

Lance stood frozen, his hands held out flat. It wasn’t clear whether he was surrendering, or whether he was about to reach for the longbow hung on his back. But when he recognized Pidge’s voice, he relaxed. “Pidge! Where have you been? Your mom is throwing a fit. And where did you find Spooks over there?” He pointed at Keith. 

Keith lowered the pipes a fraction, considering. Then he put Ranna to his lips again. 

“Hey!” Pidge protested. She dragged the pipes away from Keith’s mouth by hanging on his arm. “Keith, he can help us!” 

“He’s with the guard,” said Keith darkly. “With Sanda. We can’t trust him.” 

“Come on, Keith, I’m not supposed to be here either,” said Lance. Pidge saw immediately that it was true. The soldiers they’d seen in the park so far wore patches with the golden towers on them – the Queen’s personal guard. Lance’s uniform was the plain brown and blue of the Belisaere city guard. Sanda wouldn’t have assigned him here, so close to where she was holding Shiro. 

Keith must have reached the same conclusion, because this time he lowered the pipes for real. “What do you want?” he demanded. 

Lance grimaced as he ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Since Shiro came back, everyone has lost their minds,” he said. “The Royals are at each other’s throats, and the guard is as tense as the Royals. Everyone has their loyalties. They’re all trying to make sure they come out on top tonight.”

“Who are you loyal to?” said Keith. 

“I’m just trying to do the right thing, man. I remember Shiro from when we were growing up. He seemed like a good guy. They all said what a tragedy it was that he died. Now he’s back, and everyone is trying to use him like a bargaining chip. Doesn’t seem right.” 

Pidge beamed up at Keith. Lance could be self-centered and silly, but Pidge knew that he had a good heart. 

Keith scowled back at her. “Fine, he can come with,” he said as he continued into the cave entrance. 

As they went, Lance pointed at Keith’s hand and the weapon that had almost left him an unconscious heap in the garden path. “What is that thing?”

“They’re like the bells, but for an apprentice,” said Keith. 

Lance gestured helplessly at the little toy in Keith’s hand. “You don’t have actual bells? I thought you were an Abhorsen!” 

“I am!” Keith stammered. “I mean, I’m not. Mom is. Anyway, I’ve never had bells of my own since you’ve known me!” 

“It’s been two years! You’re all tall and buff now, and you have the sword! Forgive me for thinking Abhorsen would have sent you here prepared if she wanted you to bust the Prince out of the palace right under the Queen’s nose!” 

Keith scowled and put the pipes back in his coat as he brushed past Lance. “Mom doesn’t know I’m here, so would you give it a rest?”

Lance turned to Pidge, gaping like a fish out of water and clearly about to comment on this. Pidge shushed him and kept walking. She wasn’t a big fan of committing high treason with no parental backup, either, but the time to argue about it was passed. 

They tiptoed down the wide stone stairs and made their way down by feel once the weak starlight was swallowed by the tunnel. Pidge considered casting a mark for light, but decided that it was too risky. They didn’t yet know how many more guards were around, or where. Better to bump into one in the dark than to give away their position from afar. 

Fifty steps down, the staircase leveled off into a landing. Though she couldn’t see, Pidge knew what her surroundings looked like. She’d been down here a handful of times before, when her family had requested the use of the Great Stones for an especially difficult spell. Back then, there had been locked doors and wards all through this corridor. They must have been opened and disarmed in the confusion earlier, and not replaced. Careless of Sanda. Lucky for them. 

Keith spoke a quiet word, and the faintest of lights appeared in his palm. It illuminated the landing they stood on, and an open doorway to their right. Seeing no threats, he allowed the light to pulse brighter. 

The three of them peeked through the doorway together. 

The reservoir was a huge, high-ceilinged hall with chest-deep water for a floor. Vents high on the walls would usually let in light from the outside, but on a dark night like tonight they did little to help. Pidge could only see as far as Keith’s Charter-light shined. Pillars studded the room, making it into a forest of stone. Six little islands poked through the water near the center of the room, each bearing a large upright stone. Even from this distance, Pidge felt a surge of power run through her. 

Those six Charter Stones made up one of the Great Charters, along with the four bloodlines and the Wall. Countless lesser Charter Stones dotted the Kingdom, each a conduit for power and a beacon against Free magic. These were their parents. Not merely conduits, they were a source of the Charter. No Dead or Free magic creature could bear to be near them for long. They made Pidge feel light and airy, like she could swim the length of the reservoir without getting tired. 

If Keith was feeling the same rush of strength and euphoria, he didn’t show it. He was scanning the dim water from wall to wall. “I don’t see any guards down here,” he said. “I’m going in.” And he lowered himself into the water. The ripples made a V-shape around his waist as he waded forward, taking the light with him. 

Pidge was right behind him. Lance hesitated, but finally entered with a splash and a whispered complaint about the cold. He soon passed Pidge, who was trying to figure out whether it was more efficient to wade through the deep water or pick up her feet and swim. Instead, she grabbed onto Lance’s belt and let him tow her. 

They were getting near the Stones. Ahead, they heard Keith gasp. “Shiro?” He sped up. Lance grumbled and raced to catch him. 

On one of the little islands, a man was tied upright to one of the Stones. He sagged against his bonds, his head drooping forward so his long hair hid his face. At first, Pidge was sure it wasn’t Shiro. His hair was the wrong color, and the skin that was visible beneath his rags was striped with scars. When she crawled up onto the island and got a closer look, she saw that his right arm was missing at the shoulder. 

Then Keith lifted his chin with a shaking hand. Despite the deep scar running from one cheek to the other over the bridge of his nose, Pidge knew Shiro’s face. 

Though the Stones were still pouring warmth and comfort onto her, Pidge felt her stomach turn and she had to swallow down a horrified retch. Who knew where Shiro had been, or who had been holding him? But if this was what they’d done to him, then what had happened to her father? When she’d heard that Shiro was back, she’d been nothing but glad. For him, and for the possibility of news about her father. Now, seeing the reality of it, all her worst fears sprouted new teeth. 

Keith staggered a little where he stood, and for a moment Pidge worried they’d have to carry two people out of the reservoir. But he recovered in an instant. His face was hard as he drew his sword to cut Shiro’s bonds. But when Shiro fell forward, Keith caught him with incredible tenderness. 

Pidge had grown up watching her parents play the Royals’ political games. Once, before she knew him, Pidge had assumed that Keith was playing the game, too, by trying to impress Shiro. It was important to have connections at court, and Shiro had been next in line for the throne back then. It was only after he started spending time in her workshop that she’d realized Keith didn’t play games. He didn’t have the political savvy. Or the instinct for self-preservation. No, he’d orbited around the Prince because he’d genuinely thought Shiro hung the stars. And by the gentle way he draped Shiro’s remaining arm over his shoulders to hold him up, he still did. 

“What happened to him?” Lance breathed. 

“We’ll ask him later,” Keith grunted. “Pidge, why is he so out of it? Did I do this?” 

“Nah, there’s no way the noise from your sad sorry little panpipes made it all the way down here,” said Lance. Whether he’d meant it to or not, it seemed to take some of the guilt out of Keith’s expression. 

Pidge glanced around. Barely visible in the low light, there was a metal chalice on the ground with a thick residue inside. Pidge pointed. “They dosed him with something.” 

Keith was sagging under Shiro’s weight. “Can you reverse it?”

“I do candles, not potions,” she said. 

“I’m going to try,” said Keith, Charter magic already building in his voice. 

“Wait!” said Pidge. “You’re not just waking him up from a nap. We don’t know what they gave him. It could be dangerous to interfere.” 

Lance grabbed Shiro from his other side and took some of his weight off Keith. “Then he can just wait for it to wear off like a normal person, you Charter nerds,” he said. “Now can we shut up and get out of here?” 

Lance and Keith waded back across the reservoir, Shiro suspended between them. Pidge gave in and swam. They were drenched from the waists down (Pidge from the neck down) when they climbed the stairs and exited back into the garden. 

They’d barely made it out of the shadow of the cave before they heard a, “HALT!” A guard was just around the corner, crossbow trained on them. Lance started babbling excuses. Keith went for his panpipes, but couldn’t reach them without dropping Shiro. Pidge tried to think of an appropriate Charter spell, but nothing came to mind and all her candles were still in the Paperwing. 

She grabbed the longbow off Lance’s back and whacked the guard in the head with it. Then there was some screaming, then they were running. 

“You’re a Charter mage!” Lance yelled at her as they dashed back toward the Paperwing. “What were you thinking?”

“I PANICKED!” Pidge screamed back as a crossbow bolt whizzed past her ear. 

By the time they reached the hedgerow, the alarm was sounding all through the park and it seemed like every guard in the palace was appearing out of the trees to grab at them. Lance tried to go around the hedge. Keith dragged him through it, blasting an opening in the leaves with a Charter-spelled fireball as he went. 

They piled into the Paperwing. Lance yelped as he knocked his shins against the invisible object – thank the Charter, Pidge’s candle was still burning. Keith grabbed him by the front of his coat and dragged him inside. 

Keith whistled so loud and strong that the Paperwing seemed to levitate straight off the ground. It rocked and waggled as it zoomed thirty feet into the air, then began weaving its way through the towers and off the palace grounds. The guards below shouted and pointed, but they couldn’t pinpoint the invisible Paperwing. One of them loosed a crossbow bolt in their general direction. 

Lance leaned over the side and shouted, “Stop that! The Prince is in here!” even though they were too high up for anyone to hear them. 

“I don’t think they know,” said Pidge, curled around her candle. 

“I don’t think they care,” muttered Keith. He was standing with one foot propped up on the prow. His hand held the collar of Shiro’s shirt, steadying him against the jostling of the flight. 

Lance was still looking over the edge, watching the palace shrink behind them as they flew out over the city. “Where are we going, anyway?” 

“Anywhere not here,” said Keith tersely. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he had to whistle to keep the swerving Paperwing on course. It seemed that the later the night went on, the more temperamental the ship became. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me! I just broke every oath I ever made as a city guard and probably can never show my face in Belisaere again, and you don’t even have a plan?! Come on, Spooky!” 

“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” 

The instant Keith let his focus slip, the Paperwing bucked like an angry calf. Keith held onto the prow and managed to keep his footing. Shiro’s body shifted in the bottom of the vessel, but Keith kept his grip and he didn’t move far. 

Lance tilted, wavered, then toppled backwards onto Pidge. When they managed to disentangle themselves, Pidge found her candle snuffed out and broken in half underneath her. “Oh no,” she said. “Keith, we just lost our cloak.” 

Right on cue, an alarm horn sounded from the city below. They were nearing the city wall, and the guards on top of it were running back and forth and pointing at the sky. Since she didn’t have to worry about her poor candle anymore, Pidge crawled to the front of the Paperwing and leaned over the side. Some of the guards down there were holding torches. No, not torches. The lights were coming from Charter magic that they were summoning in their hands – marks to break and hold and weigh down. The ones that weren’t working magic were readying grappling hooks. Near the gatehouse, someone was turning a crank on a huge, wooden machine. Pidge leaned out farther to get a better look, then shrank back when she recognized it as a ballista with a projectile the size of a sapling. 

“Get us out of here!” Lance cried. 

So far Keith had been quiet and careful with the unruly Paperwing. Now he whistled loud and bold. The yellow eyes flashed angrily. A second later, a gale hit their backs. 

They flew too fast for Charter spells or ballista bolts to catch them. Over the gatehouse, past the wall, and into the misty sky above the Sea of Saere. The turbulence was almost unbearable, but they were clear of the city and free from their pursuers. 

“Nice going!” Pidge told Keith. 

Keith looked at her with wide eyes. He’d stepped down from the prow and was holding onto the side of the Paperwing with white knuckles. “I’m not controlling it anymore,” he said through his teeth. 

They picked up speed as they left the sea behind and spun out over the mainland. The gale Keith had called up was becoming a cyclone howling around them. The Paperwing was twisted, jolted, and tossed around. The four of them barely managed to stay inside. When the spinning gave Pidge a view of the ground, she was surprised to find the trees so close. Very close. Getting closer. 

“Keith!” she screamed. 

He whistled against the wind and mercifully, grudgingly, the Paperwing slowed its fall. Instead of hitting the dirt at terminal velocity, they only slammed into it hard enough to make it feel like all their bones had been rattled out of their bodies. Chunks of earth flew through the air around them as the keel of the Paperwing cut a deep furrow, skidding through grass and mud. Pidge barely had time to notice the stand of trees they were approaching before they clipped the largest one with the tip of a wing, and the Paperwing spun wildly to a stop. 

When it was finally quiet, Pidge opened her eyes to find herself lying on her back, spread-eagled in the mud. She waggled her fingers and toes. Nothing seemed to be broken. She picked up her head to see Lance hanging half-in and half-out of the Paperwing, looking about as dazed as she felt. Keith was in the mud beside her. He was still hanging on to Shiro. Neither of them looked too badly hurt, either. 

The Paperwing had not been so lucky. It had deep gouges from its slide across the uneven ground, and its wingtip where it hit the tree was broken and dangling. So much for their ride. Wherever they were, they’d be walking from here. 

“Hey, buddy, are you alright?” said a voice from the trees. Pidge ignored her bruises and scrambled to her feet, ready to defend herself. The speaker was a young man with a wide, brown face, soft eyes, and black hair falling over the top of an orange headband. He carried a torch. He didn’t look like a guard or militia, but Pidge had to assume anyone in this area would be loyal to the crown. Charter marks flared in her hands as she readied an attack. 

Keith grabbed her by the wrist. Her marks fizzled. “Pidge, no!” he gasped. 

The man from the trees narrowed his eyes. Then they flew wide. “Wait…” he said. 

“Keith?”


	7. A memory

It was a tense little crowd that gathered in what passed for a town square in the little village north and west of the Sea of Saere. The tallest towers of the capitol were almost visible through the trees, but this place was decidedly more rustic. The village was little more than a cluster of huts and cabins with some farmland nearby. But it did have its own Charter Stone, which made it a safer place than most in this remote stretch of the kingdom. 

Its Stone hadn’t helped it with its current problem, though. The trouble had started with people waking up drained and irritable, unexplained wounds on their bodies. It progressed to people taking ill. Some of the people in the square today were leaning on their neighbors or on canes. The weakest were carried out on stretchers. 

It was only when people had started turning up dead that the village headwoman became desperate enough to call for Abhorsen. 

The headwoman was a formidable figure in floral robes. Shorter than Krolia, but more solid, like she was connected to the earth. Her black hair was curly, and her skin was nut-brown. She stood against the Charter Stone in the middle of the square, eyeing Krolia suspiciously. Even when people needed Krolia’s services, it went against everything they’d ever learned to welcome a necromancer into their community and follow her orders. 

The headwoman’s son looked like her. Keith spotted him shepherding a little knot of children out of the crèche and into the sunlight. He was a little younger than Keith, built solid like his mother. He would grow up to be a big man. But his voice was soft and tender as he encouraged the last little girl to step out of the shadow of the doorframe. They had introduced him to Keith when they arrived. Hunk. 

The headwoman drummed her fingers against the Stone behind her. “I don’t see why we need to disrupt everyone’s work,” she said to Krolia, though she was polite enough to keep her voice down so her people didn’t hear. “Perhaps if we did this tonight instead?” 

Krolia didn’t look at her. She was busy scanning the crowd. Her eyes flicked to each new person as they emerged from the huts and houses, and from out of the fields. “If there is truly a Dead creature here,” she said, “then it will know that I have come. An animal is most dangerous when it is cornered. We must act quickly.” 

“If you insist,” the headwoman sighed. 

Keith waited at Krolia’s right hand and said nothing. People tended to be wary but respectful of Abhorsen. But for the gangly boy beside her, they seemed to have only confusion and pity. Abhorsen’s work wasn’t fit for a child, some whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear. He wondered who they thought would be Abhorsen one day, if not her son? He plucked at the edge of his coat and avoided the villagers’ stares.

The last few stragglers jogged out of the fields and joined the crowd. “That’s everyone,” said the headwoman. 

“Good,” said Krolia, loud enough for everyone to hear. “The Dead prefer darkness. It will be hiding somewhere cool and dry, like a cellar or storehouse. You all will be safe out here in the sunlight while I search for it.”

Then, quieter, so that only Keith could hear, Krolia added a cryptic, “Watch them.” 

Keith studied the assembled villagers. They were made up of all ages, genders, and colors of skin and hair. Most looked frightened, though some simply seemed impatient. Some were looking to the headwoman for guidance. Others stared at Krolia and Keith. Hunk was focused on the children, who chattered and swirled around his legs. And the children themselves… 

Keith peered closer. There was something wrong there. From somewhere in the knot of children was coming the faintest wisp of something sweetly fetid and rotten. The Dead creature was hiding among them. 

A Mordaut. One of the weaker forms of lesser Dead, it couldn’t survive for long in sunlight or near a working Charter Stone. In order to thrive in a village like this one, it would need to take refuge inside a living human. Krolia hadn’t gathered the villagers out here to keep them safe in the sun. She’d summoned them so that she could ferret out which was harboring the killer. 

But if it was in one of the children, that complicated matters. When a Mordaut feels threatened, it simply consumes its host and escapes. Keith narrowed his eyes and tried to pick out which child the stench of death was wafting from.

“Don’t stare,” Krolia whispered. The children were starting to notice his attention. One was pointing at him and saying something to Hunk. Keith looked at the ground. 

“How long will we have to stay out here?” Hunk piped up. “And will there be bathroom breaks? How about snack breaks?” One of the toddlers in his care was fussing. He distracted him by hoisting the little boy onto his broad shoulders. 

Krolia took the opportunity to cross the square and kneel by the group of children. Hunk quailed at her approach, instantly sorry he’d spoken up. But to his credit, he didn’t step away. The cloud of children contracted as they all fell silent and tried to cling to his ankles. 

“It won’t take long,” Krolia promised. Then she held out her pale hand to a little girl with red pigtails who was trying to disappear behind Hunk’s leg. She smiled down at her. Krolia’s smile could be gentle when she wanted it to be. “Hello.” 

The girl waved shyly. 

“Are you afraid?” said Krolia. 

The girl nodded. Hunk shifted to block her from Krolia. 

“You needn’t be,” Krolia said to her, reaching around Hunk as if he weren’t there. “You look strong and brave. Perhaps you could show me all the dark storerooms and underground places in town? Just the two of us?” 

“Hey…” Hunk started to say. Keith gave the smallest of waves to get his attention, and put his finger to his lips. Hunk’s face twisted in confusion, but he apparently trusted Keith enough to be silent. 

The little girl finally came out from behind Hunk and took Krolia’s proffered hand. She didn’t protest when Krolia lifted her up and balanced her on her hip the way she’d used to do with Keith. 

“There you are. See? Nothing to be afraid of.” 

With a hand so swift and deft that Keith barely saw her move, Krolia drew Saraneth. She held it up beside the girl’s ear and gave it the softest of rings. The ringing continued as the bell vibrated in Krolia’s hand, a pitch almost too high to hear. Keith could feel it buzzing in his jaw. The girl’s eyes went glassy and her body became stiff in Krolia’s arms. 

“NO!” Hunk shouted, starting to rush forward. 

Keith intercepted him. “Wait!” he said. The bigger boy could have run right over the top of him if he’d chosen to. But Hunk waited. 

Krolia leaned the stricken body of the girl against her shoulder and said into her ear with a voice full of Free magic, “Leave her.” 

The girl convulsed and a patch of inky shadow bubbled out of her mouth to splatter on the ground. It curled in on itself like so many tentacles, trying to escape the sunlight now that it had lost the shelter of the human body it had hijacked. But it was still bound, and could not escape. 

The girl, suddenly free, wailed and clutched at Krolia’s surcoat for comfort. Krolia staggered as she tried not to drop the wiggling child. The girl grabbed at her, at her neck and her hair, and as she pulled her movements jostled the arm that held the bell. With a gasp, Krolia stifled Saraneth to keep it from ringing of its own accord. 

The high-pitched buzzing was gone. The Mordaut flexed its will and managed to slip its bonds. All at once, its shadow-stuff solidified into a shape not unlike a rat and it scampered for the safety of the shadows. The people, at first too intimidated by Krolia and perhaps a little dulled by Saraneth’s song to move, suddenly roared into action as they shrieked and scattered. The Mordaut in its rat-shape slithered first toward one house, then another, looking for darkness but finding only dead ends. 

Instead, it turned toward the people still left in the square. If it could not find an exit, it would find a new host. Most had escaped by then. But Hunk was still standing firm, and there were a couple of children still clinging to his legs. 

The Mordaut scurried toward them, frighteningly fast. 

“Anet! Calew! Ferhan!” Hunk spread his fingers and three bolts of energy shot from them toward the Mordaut. It was simple magic – the first offensive spell any Charter mage learns. But there was power behind it that made Keith take notice. Two bolts kicked up sprays of dirt on either side of the squirming darkness. The third found its mark. 

The Mordaut shrieked and twisted in on itself, its rat-like form momentarily disrupted. Shrinking away from the children, who were not so defenseless as it had thought, it whirled on the next closest target and launched itself toward Keith. 

“Catch!” he heard Krolia say. The headwoman had taken the sobbing girl away from her, and her hands were finally free. She could have easily rung another bell, or cast Charter magic at the creature. Instead she drew her sword and tossed it hilt-first toward Keith. 

Keith caught it and swung it in the same motion. The blade flashed with Charter marks as it passed through the shadow-flesh, and the Mordaut fell in two pieces beside him. The blobs of darkness wriggled and spasmed as they tried to join back together. 

Before they could manage it, Krolia was there with Kibeth in her hand. She swung it back and forth and in a figure-eight pattern, ringing out a cheerful little melody that made the Mordaut scream in despair. Its form heaved and sagged, then melted away as Kibeth forced it to walk into Death where it belonged. 

\-----

That evening, there was a feast in the village. Krolia usually avoided such affairs, but they were staying one more night anyway and the headwoman insisted. Everyone they had seen that morning huddled terrified in the sun now sat at rows of wooden tables and laughed and sang and ate. The food was rustic, not the fancy confections that Keith saw when he was at the royal court, but it was filling and tasted good. 

When Krolia left her chair to speak to the headwoman, Hunk filled her seat. He was carrying a platter with some kind of little savory tarts on it. The decorations on top made them look fancier than anything laid out on the tables, and Keith eyed them suspiciously. But Hunk was beaming at him, so he took one and fidgeted with it until the pastry started to crumble off. 

“Thank you for what you did today,” said Hunk. “We’ll never forget our debt to the Abhorsen.” 

“You didn’t do too bad yourself,” Keith answered. “Who taught you Charter magic?”

“My parents. My mom is the Charter mage for the village, but my whole family uses little practical spells. You pick it up pretty quick around here.” 

Keith looked around. He’d seen Hunk’s mother cast marks when she summoned the village at Krolia’s command, and dotted around the room he could see people with Hunk’s coloring using little cantrips to pass pitchers from table to table and to warm up their food. Most of it was clumsy. Some were passably effective. One or two had some aptitude. None had the raw power and talent he had sensed from Hunk earlier that day. 

“You don’t understand,” Keith said. “You’re really good. Belisaere is nearby. Why aren’t you at the college there?” 

Hunk laughed. “We don’t have money for college.” 

“But…” Keith protested, angry on Hunk’s behalf, “they have scholarships, and this village does good enough trade that you could afford the rest if everyone pitched in. It’s not fair that you don’t get to use your talents just because you were born in the wrong place.” 

“I am using my talents!” said Hunk brightly, and he pointed at the pastry in Keith’s hand. Belatedly, Keith remembered to take a bite. Then he took another. Sheepishly, he gathered two more tarts off Hunk’s platter to save for later. “Sure, I could take a little something from everyone here and go to the college. Probably learn a lot, meet people, get some opportunities I wouldn’t get here in the village. But if I stay, I can keep giving to people instead of taking.”

“And that makes you happy?”

“Of course it does! You say I was born in the wrong place, but I think it’s just right for me.” 

Keith popped the last bite of the tart into his mouth. “These are really good,” he said. 

Hunk clapped him on the shoulder with one of his big, warm hands. “Come visit next time you’re up north,” he said. “You’re always welcome here.” When he got back up to join the party, he left the platter of pastries behind.


	8. Shiro, coming home

When Shiro woke up, he didn’t know where he was, and he was comfortable. 

The first part was so ordinary now as to be barely worth noting. He hadn’t opened his eyes to familiar surroundings in years. 

The second part was new. Wherever he was, it was pleasantly warm and smelled of wood and dust. There was a soft quilt under him and under that, he thought from the texture, a pile of hay. There were no shackles or bonds anywhere on his body. No one was grabbing him, or dragging him, or holding him down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up like this, without immediately being cold, afraid, or in pain. 

He couldn’t remember much at all, actually. 

He remembered a fight. The caravan being attacked. Blood, people dying, a struggle. He remembered being dragged away from the carnage as a prisoner. 

And he remembered an escape. A long, frantic ride east with enemies at his back. 

He had a sense of time passing in between. A year? Years? In that time, a vague and shapeless horror. Bits and pieces, jumbled together out of order. But when he tried to peer closer at those memories, his mind flinched away from them like a hand from a hot stove. 

He knew the details were in there somewhere, though. He’d had all his limbs when he was captured, but when he looked down at his right arm he expected it to be gone. He did. It was. 

He forced himself to look away from the puckered scar on his shoulder and scan the room instead. It was small, and dimly-lit by a couple of oil-burning lamps turned down low. Dirt walls were propped up with wooden beams. Boxes and shelves lined what was clearly an underground storeroom, leaving little room for the people sprawled asleep over the available floor space. First he recognized Pidge Holt, and the sight of a friendly face almost made him gasp with relief. She was curled up in a corner, clutching a large and lumpy travel bag like it was a stuffed animal. Beside her slept a Belisaere guard still in his armor. Shiro had seen him before. He thought his name might be Lance.

Shiro turned his head. Against the opposite wall sat a big man with a round, inviting face. He was the only one who was awake, and he’d noticed Shiro start to stir. A fourth person was asleep next to him, arms crossed, tipped over with his head on the big man’s shoulder so that his long hair hid his face. Shiro’s eyes were still bleary, so it took him a moment to recognize the pattern on his blue coat. 

Silver keys. 

It was suddenly hard to breathe. Shiro reached out and said, “Keith?” but it came out as a hoarse whisper. 

The big man smiled and nudged his shoulder. “Keith, he’s up,” he said.

Keith was awake in an instant, and brushing his hair out of his eyes. He looked older than when Shiro had last seen him. It hurt how much older he looked. Every inch of hair was time that Shiro hadn’t spent with him. His skinny arms were thick and strong now – training sessions and adventures that Shiro had missed. It was hard to tell with his legs scrunched up under him, but he looked taller. Even his face was different. Shiro had left an adolescent behind. The face in front of him belonged to a man. 

But his eyes were the same. 

“Shiro!” Keith’s voice cracked as he shoved off the wall and reached out his hands. 

Shiro sat up in time to catch Keith as he crashed into him. Then, dizzy, he almost fell back down again and Keith had to catch him. They clung to each other, holding each other up. Heart-to-heart now, the Charter flowed between them they way it had when they were children. It blazed in Keith. He was on fire with a power that Shiro would never achieve. That he was privileged just to stand close to. He wrapped his arm around Keith’s back and squeezed him tighter. 

Keith’s hands were on his shoulders, stiff and unsure. But when he felt the Charter in Shiro’s blood, its brokenness as good as a fingerprint, he let out a sigh that was almost a sob and his face fell onto Shiro’s chest. “It’s really you!” said Keith, his arms flying around Shiro’s neck to hold him close. 

In that moment, the years melted away. It didn’t matter that he’d met a cold welcome in Belisaere. The palace had never really been his home. Home had been his grandfather’s smile. Home had been the Holts’ friendship. Home had been the Paperwing over the sea. 

Now he was in Keith’s arms, and home was right here. 

\-----

The big man’s name was Hunk, and they were in the cellar of his brother’s house. “He’s down south trading in Orchyre. There won’t be many people using his house while he’s gone, but you should still stay downstairs just in case. We’ll have a lot of explaining to do if someone sees you.” 

“Why are you helping me?” Shiro asked. As the son of the village headwoman, Hunk had to know how dangerous this was. His whole family had sworn fealty to the crown. By going against Sanda, he was risking all their freedoms and livelihoods. 

Hunk smiled, big and beaming like the rest of him. “Keith’s my friend, and he asked me to. Any requests for the kitchen?” And he snuck out of the cellar to bring them some food. 

He returned with a folded-up tablecloth full of little round loaves of brown bread, chunks of cheese, dried meat, a few apples and pears, and a little tin of butter. 

Hunk gestured at the spread, saying, “Sorry it’s not much. I could only take what nobody would miss, and I didn’t have time to cook anything fresh, so…” They were already tearing into the food, heedless of Hunk’s apologies. Shiro didn’t think he’d ever tasted anything so good. 

They talked around mouthfuls of food, through their chewing, no one caring about manners. By the time the tablecloth was empty, Shiro had been more or less filled in on the events of last night. Pidge and Lance told most of the story of their infiltration and escape. Keith hovered quietly by Shiro’s side. 

When the story was done, it was Keith who asked the question Shiro had been expecting, and dreading. “Where have you been?” he said. “What happened to you?” 

Shiro searched for the words to explain it. He wanted to give them all the answers they craved, but he could feel his memories swirling like river rapids. If he waded into them too fast, he would be pulled under. “I don’t remember much. Someone was holding us. At first we were just prisoners. Me, a couple of the other ambassadors, Sam Holt.” 

Pidge straightened up and leaned forward. Her hands were on her knees and her arms were shaking. Her lower lip disappeared into her mouth as she bit it. 

“Then she separated me from the others. That’s when I start to get lost.” He turned to Pidge. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to Sam.” 

Pidge wilted, and her eyes brimmed with tears. 

“She?” said Keith. 

A face swam out of his memories, dark and indistinct. Yellow eyes. Markings down her cheeks. She wore robes, and a bandolier under them. The bandolier held pouches. Seven of them. “She,” Shiro confirmed, sure now. “A necromancer.” 

Keith put a hand to his head and let out a long, slow breath. He was working hard to stay calm, but Shiro knew how to recognize fear in that face. Shiro was afraid, too. A necromancer in the borderlands, undetected and unchecked for at least two years? She could be a threat to the whole kingdom. 

“Mom can deal with her later,” said Keith, though he still looked worried. “What about you? What did she want with you?” 

Shiro shook his head. The necromancer’s face was lurking at the edge of his vision, making his heart race and his body tense. “I think it’s coming back to me, but right now it’s just…” Flashes of agony. His own screams ringing in his ears. Terror. Revulsion. Waking up one day and not knowing why he felt off-balance until he noticed the thick, deep stitches in his shoulder where his arm used to be. “It’s just a blur,” he finished, shaking off the memories. 

Keith put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m just glad you’re back.” The softness and worry in his eyes were a promise not to ask any more. Not now, at least. 

Pidge stood up, her fists shaking at her sides. “We have to go west,” she said. “We’ll kill that necromancer and find out what happened to my dad!” 

“Don’t be stupid,” said Keith with his signature charm. “We’d need an army to take on a fully-trained necromancer, or at least the Abhorsen. We’re on the run from the crown and we’re hiding in a basement. We’re not taking on anyone.”

Lance had been quietly munching on the last apple, but now he tugged on Pidge’s sleeve and said, “Keith’s being a jerk, but he’s right. We have to get somewhere safe. Then we can make a plan for your dad.” 

Pidge sat back down, but she didn’t look happy about it. “I don’t get why we’re running at all,” she growled. “Shiro’s a Royal. We’re all happy he’s back. Everyone in Belisaere would be, too, if they knew. What’s Sanda’s problem?” 

“The Queen never wanted Shiro back,” said Lance. He was using the tip of one of his arrows to flick seeds out of his apple core as he went on. “Charter mark or no, he’s always had a stronger claim to the throne than she does. It was really convenient for her that he disappeared. Now that he’s back, she’d rather keep him a secret, or make him disappear again if she can find a way. Maybe even kill him, but I don’t think she’ll have to go that far. Even if worst comes to worst for her and everyone finds out he’s back, all she has to do is convince them that he’s been tainted with Free magic. That’s why she put him down with the Great Stones – just in case some monster was hitching a ride with him…” 

Lance finally looked up to find everyone staring at him. He hesitated, then sputtered, “You’re all from Charter bloodlines! I’m just some palace guard’s kid! How do I know more about court politics than you?” 

“That’s not politics,” said Keith. “It’s just gossip.” 

“Nah, Lance is right,” Hunk piped up. “Everyone knows there are Dead out in the borderlands, but the Queen never sent Abhorsen to investigate. Why? Because she was afraid she’d find Shiro, and the Queen would rather he stayed lost.” 

So his family’s backstabbing had become common knowledge. Shiro couldn’t bring himself to be surprised. Sanda had always believed in herself and no one else. Anyone else in power was a threat to her rule and, in her eyes, to the safety of the kingdom. He had to admit, though, that he hadn’t expected her to jump straight to clapping him in irons the moment he approached the city gates. Two years of ruling unopposed had apparently gone to her head. “We need to get somewhere more secure, somewhere that Sanda can’t reach us,” he sighed. 

Keith said, “I was planning on flying us back home. Abhorsen’s House is neutral ground. Not even the Queen can overrule mom on her own turf. But the Paperwing was damaged in the crash. I think it can be fixed, but it would take a long time. It’s not an option for now.”

“Abhorsen’s House is too far to travel without a Paperwing,” Shiro mused out loud. “And the Wallmakers are even farther south.” 

“What about the Clayr?” said Pidge.

Keith nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. The glacier is independent of Belisaere, just like Abhorsen’s House. And the Clayr don’t care about kingdom politics. Shiro is from a Charter bloodline, just like them. If he’s their guest, they’ll protect him.” 

The room went quiet. There were no objections. The Clayr’s glacier it was, then. 

Hunk stood and brushed himself off. “It’ll take a week to get there on foot,” he said. “We’ll need supplies. Warm clothes, bedrolls, cooking gear, rations…”

“We?” said Shiro. 

“Yeah! I’m coming with you!” 

“Hunk,” said Keith. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“I know!” said Hunk. His smile was strained, but still bright. “But I’m not the kind of person who can help someone out, then just toss them into the wilderness with a necromancer and an entire nation’s government after them. I’m going to see this through. Even if it’s really, really scary.” 

Lance chipped in, “Besides, if you stay here and the Queen finds out you helped us she’ll definitely throw you in the dungeons.” 

Hunk gulped. “For sure coming with you,” he said flatly. 

They rested through the day while the village above hustled and bustled. Hunk brought them more food. Keith stood guard by the ladder. They were quiet. With villagers nearby, even the sound of conversation could give them away. 

When the activity above died down and the sunlight didn’t stream through the gaps in the trapdoor, Shiro knew it was night again. Pidge and Lance climbed the ladder to join Hunk in gathering equipment and supplies for their journey. Hunk insisted that they were the only ones who could come. They didn’t expect to be caught, but if they were, no one in the village knew who Pidge and Lance were. They’d all met Keith, and plenty of them would recognize Shiro. 

So the two of them stayed in the cellar and waited. Shiro paced. He’d had enough rest after nearly an entire day of drugged sleep, and the movement helped stretch out his aches and stiffness. As he moved, he felt dozens of scars tugging at his skin. There was a morbid urge to strip down and take stock of the damage to his body, but Keith was still leaning on the ladder and watching him, so he kept pacing until he warmed up and couldn’t feel the scars as much. 

Keith was nearly vibrating with the urge to ask more questions, but he held his tongue. It was Shiro who finally said what they were both thinking. 

“Two years,” he said. “Why did she keep me so long?” She could have ransomed him, blackmailed the Royals, stolen his soul away. What did she do instead? Torture him as some kind of game? There had to be more to it than that.

“I don’t know,” Keith admitted. “It doesn’t make sense.” 

“What do necromancers usually do with their captives?”

Keith’s eyes widened, but then he thought about it and answered, “They kill them, and turn them into Hands. If a necromancer puts a soul back in its own dead body, they can bind it to be their servant. That’s a Hand. Or they can turn them into a revenant by building a new body and trapping the soul inside.”

Shiro opened and closed his fingers, studying the way his joints moved. His body certainly felt foreign to him. Was that just because of the damage done to it? Or was it because he didn’t truly belong in it? “Do Hands and revenants know they’re Hands and revenants?” he wondered. 

Keith pushed off the ladder and crossed the room with his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. Shiro almost flinched away from his anger, but Keith wasn’t angry. The intensity on his face came from something else. When he reached Shiro, he slowed and put a gentle hand to the middle of his chest. “You’re not dead,” he rasped. “I can tell. Trust me. You’re you. Whatever she did to you, she didn’t change you.” 

Shiro gestured to what was left of his body. “She changed me,” he said with an ironic laugh. 

“Not where it counts.” Keith pressed his hand harder against Shiro’s heart. Then his eyes flickered, and he suddenly pulled away with a red tinge on his cheeks. 

Shiro’s face was warm, too. He turned to keep Keith from seeing. “I didn’t say it before,” he said when he trusted his voice, “but thank you for saving me.”

“I swore I always would,” said Keith with a sad smile. 

So that was why Keith felt the need to help him. An old oath. Duty. It made sense. Keith had always looked up to him like an older brother. 

And Shiro had once been happy to have a younger brother. A best friend. But his feelings toward Keith had changed as they’d gotten older. Not their intensity, but their shape. There had been only an inkling of it back then, right before he’d left. You miss a brother when he’s away; you don’t yearn for him. You think of a brother when something reminds you of him; not constantly. You would kill for a brother; you wouldn’t die for him. 

But if there had ever been the potential for something more there, the intervening years had stolen it. 

Keith had grown up beautiful. 

And Shiro had come home ruined.


	9. Keith, running

The others returned with an abundance of supplies. They portioned the rations, bedrolls, and other provisions between five packs. Keith and Lance already had armor and weapons. Keith was wearing a long vest of ceramic scales under his surcoat – lightweight and incredibly strong – with his sword and pipes at the ready. Lance was still in his guard uniform, with the longbow on his back. Keith wasn’t positive that Lance could actually shoot worth a damn, but at least he was armed. 

Hunk claimed the heaviest pack for himself. “I’m a farmer’s kid,” he said as he hoisted it onto his shoulders. “I haul stuff all day. This is nothing!” He’d found himself some simple traveler’s clothes to wear. Keith tried to convince him to wear armor, or at least carry a knife. They didn’t know who or what they’d run into on the road. Hunk declined. He wasn’t used to wearing armor, and he’d never fought with a blade. He would trust his magic to keep him safe, if it came to it. 

Keith saved the smallest pack for Pidge. She stacked her candle bag on top of it and settled both onto her back. She was still wearing her court clothes – a forest green tunic with gold piping – though she’d swapped her shoes out for a sensible pair of boots. Like Hunk, she refused to wear armor. “Look at me,” she said. “If someone gets close enough to stab me, then armor won’t help me. But don’t worry. I’ve got my bag of tricks to hold them off.” She pointed at her back, where her candles were. Keith managed to strap a dagger to her belt, which she accepted with an, “Oh! Cool!” 

Shiro needed all new clothes. The rags he wore were ripped and rotten, and looked about to fall off him. He was also caked in weeks’ worth of dirt and sweat. Hunk brought him a pail of warm water and some soap, and they all climbed the ladder to the ground level of the house, and let Shiro wash and dress in privacy. 

Keith stood by the window and breathed the crisp early-morning air. The sky was still dark, but the dawn wasn’t far off. They would have just enough time to leave the village before everyone woke. He leaned out the window and gazed at the mountain, preparing for the long hike ahead of them. 

When the trapdoor opened and Shiro emerged, Keith’s elbow slipped off the windowsill and he almost fell. Hunk had found Shiro a brigandine big enough to fit him. Its leather hugged his form tighter than the armor Keith was used to seeing on him, but the metal panels still evoked a shining knightly plate. He’d cut the right sleeve off and strapped the pauldron down to cover the hole so that it almost looked like it was meant to be worn that way. A longsword hung on his right hip. His padded trousers, boots, and single glove were all mismatched, but they somehow fit him perfectly. The scar across his nose was even more striking against his freshly-scrubbed face. He kept tucking his still-wet hair behind his ears, but it fell free again each time. 

“Let me get that for you,” said Pidge, waving him down. Shiro knelt so that Pidge could reach. She took a piece of twine and tied his hair back at the nape of his neck. Immediately, a couple of white wisps freed themselves and fell gently against his cheek. 

“Let’s go,” said Shiro. And they filed out after him. 

Keith was the last to move. Pidge lagged behind to pat him twice on the back, hard, snapping him out of his reverie. “Oh boy, this is going to be a long hike,” she muttered as she jogged to catch up with the others. 

They left the sparse trees and farmland of the village and passed into the open plains that sloped up toward the mountains where the Clayr lived. It was chilly at first, but the marching and the now-risen sun soon warmed them up. Lance bounded ahead like a mountain goat, tired himself out quickly, dragged his feet and complained for a mile or so, then caught a second wind and repeated the process. Hunk set a steady pace and never seemed to slow down. Pidge kept up on her short legs out of stubborn determination. She sweated and sagged beneath her pack, but she didn’t complain. 

Shiro struggled at first. His pack was awkward hanging off only one shoulder, and he was limping a little. Sometimes a shadow in the trees would make him freeze and stare, and once a crow flying too low over the group made him flinch and suck his breath between his teeth. Keith brought up the rear of the group to make sure he wasn’t falling behind. When he started to look tired, Keith called for a rest and told everyone it was for Pidge’s sake. 

By the afternoon, Shiro was looking better. He and Pidge were walking side-by-side, and they even had some breath to spare on talking and laughing. His head was up, and when he turned it this way and that it didn’t look like he was scanning for danger on the horizon. His lips were slightly parted, a smile hovering there. 

Keith followed where Shiro’s eyes went. The sky was the bright, cheerful gray of sun shining through cloud cover. The landscape rolled and wrinkled. Grasses in shades of yellow, brown, and orange brushed their ankles and waved with the wind, making the landscape move like a choppy sea. Clusters of hardy wildflowers poked up from the soil and added sprays of color. In the distance, the mountain scraped the clouds and the glacier glittered where it nestled between two peaks. 

This place wasn’t as lush as the greenery in the southlands, nor as magnificent as the finery of Belisaere. But it was open and wild and there was space to breathe. Shiro looked like he was feeling his freedom for the first time. 

They made camp when the sun began to sink low. They hadn’t covered as much ground as Keith had hoped, but it wasn’t a bad start. 

“We’re pretty exposed out here,” Lance noticed as he shook out his bedroll. The open plains, so inviting in the daytime, were turning ominous in the dark. Their campfire made them visible for miles around. 

“We’ll be okay if we put up some wards,” said Keith. “There isn’t anything really dangerous in this area, anyway, except maybe some wolves.”

“I’ll take care of it!” said Hunk. He looked at the mountain to orient himself, made a half-turn to the right, and pressed his hand to the ground. When he removed it, the Charter mark for East was glowing in the dirt. He made a wide loop around their entire camp, stamping each of the cardinal directions as he went so that all five of them fit comfortably within. When he finished the final mark, they flashed once and lines of light linked the four in a diamond. 

Keith knew the spell well. It would enclose them for as long as Hunk willed it. They could get out, but anything trying to enter would have to overcome the strength of Hunk’s casting. And it was a good diamond – the marks were strong and the connections were thick and bright. 

Pidge followed Hunk around the diamond, watching him cast each mark. When he was finished, she said, “Nice casting! Mind if I make some modifications?”

“How do you modify a Diamond of Protection?”

Pidge dove into her bag and produced four tiny lumps of wax, no bigger than tea candles. She scooted one onto each of the cardinal marks on the ground, taking care not to break the enchantment, and then blew on each of them to light them. When she was done, the diamond looked just as it had before. But Keith could feel the difference. If Hunk’s Diamond of Protection had been a six-foot fence, Pidge’s was a castle moat. 

Hunk knelt by the North mark to peer intently at the candle burning there, and after a moment he asked Pidge, “Wait, so did you cast North into it a bunch of times, or is it just one supercharged mark? And how do you get it to stick to the wax?” 

Pidge straightened up, her eyes gleaming. She began a rapid-fire explanation of her methods and the magical theory behind spell storage. Keith had heard it before, and some of it had made sense. To his surprise, Hunk appeared to be keeping up. No, not surprise. Keith had known Hunk had it in him. He should have guessed that he and Pidge would be kindred spirits. 

Keith listened in as Hunk continued to ask interesting questions, which only encouraged Pidge to dive deeper into her animated rant. She began pulling candles out of her bag to show him the different spells inlaid in each one. 

“Just don’t light any of them,” Keith warned her as she added to her pile. 

Then he noticed that Shiro wasn’t watching the little drama unfold. He was looking west with hard eyes and a rigid back. Keith followed his gaze. On the farthest hill they could see before the landscape dipped over the horizon, silhouetted against the setting sun, was a shape. It was too far to make out any details. It looked like a lump of darkness set on two thick pillars.

Or like a beast standing on two legs. 

“Can you tell what it is?” Shiro muttered, trying not to alert the others. 

Shiro’s eyes were just as good as Keith’s. He wasn’t asking if Keith could see it; he was asking if it was Dead. Keith stretched out his awareness, but just as the Diamond of Protection kept the outside out it also kept Keith’s senses in. “No,” he said. “I might be able to get a feel for it if I left the Diamond, but I can’t without breaking it.” 

“Do you think…” Shiro didn’t get to finish his sentence before two points of yellow light appeared on the dark shape just as the sunset faded behind it. Eyes. Looking at them. Shiro reeled. Keith reached out to him, but he’d already managed to steady himself. “It’s her,” he said. His entire body was wound tight as a spring. 

“Who, the necromancer?” said Lance’s voice. Keith turned. The others had noticed, and were staring at Shiro. 

“You’re sure?” said Keith. Fear could play tricks on a mind. But if Shiro said it, he would believe it. 

Shiro’s eyes were still locked on the horizon and the dark shape. “I’m sure,” he said. “Whatever that is, she sent it after me.” 

“After _us_ ,” said Keith, which finally made Shiro look away from the sunset and into his eyes. “Whatever it’s after, it’ll be up against all five of us if it wants trouble.” 

_And if it’s after you_ , Keith stopped just short of adding, _it’ll have to go through me._

When they looked back, the horizon was smooth. The creature had disappeared into the nighttime darkness. Perhaps it had gone away. But the moon was new, and now that the sun had set the world seemed to end at the edge of their fire. If it was coming towards them, they wouldn’t see it until it was too late. 

Keith sighed. This was getting dangerous. “I think it’s time I called my mom.” 

\-----

Keith knelt in an open space near the edge of the Diamond, away from the fire. He drew his sword and rested the blade across his lap. In his other hand he held the panpipes. It paid to be cautious when entering Death. There could be creatures waiting to strike an unwary necromancer as he crossed the veil. 

Shiro hovered nervously nearby. He’d never seen Keith walk in Death before. Keith had made sure of that. The last thing he’d wanted was to remind Shiro of how different and dangerous he was. Nothing for it now, though. 

“Is this safe?” Shiro said.

Of course it wasn’t safe. He was casting his soul out of his body and into Death. He likely wouldn’t need to go beyond the First Precinct, but there were unpredictable currents and powerful monsters even there. Krolia had drilled it into him never to be complacent. Every walk in Death could be your last. 

He smiled. “I’ll be fine. Just don’t let anything happen to my body while I’m gone.” 

“I’ll sit on Lance,” said Pidge helpfully. 

Lance said, “Psh. Like I would.” 

Shiro wasn’t listening to them. His attention was on Keith. “How long will you be away?”

“Hard to say. It could take a while for mom to respond. But time works differently in Death, so it will probably be less time here. I’ll be as quick as I can.” 

He closed his eyes and felt the cold seize his body as he slipped through the veil and into the river of Death. 

The water of the First Precinct was shallower and gentler here than it would be deeper in Death. Keith felt it tugging at his calves as he opened his eyes to the familiar misty surroundings. His sword and pipes were in his hands, at the ready. But there was nothing to use them on. The First Precinct was quiet. 

He took a tightly-wound ring of hair from one of the inside pockets of his coat. It belonged to Krolia. She had some of his, too, and they never went anywhere without it. He unspooled one strand from the ring and tied the end around his finger. Then he chanted a little Free magic spell while dipping the other end into the river. 

The current caught the hair and straightened it out with its pull. Then the hair whipped back and forth as it elongated, a tiny filament snaking out through the water, searching for the head it had come from. Keith lost track of the end as it grew longer and longer, defying the current to twist this way and that. He thought he saw it wind off to his left. 

Now he just had to wait. 

Minutes later, maybe hours, he heard something to his left. A change in the sound of the river. Instead of its peaceful trickle, for one second it bubbled and burped like one of Pidge’s vats of boiling wax. Something was wrong. 

He whirled, saying “Mom?” even though he knew it wasn’t her. 

A dark, robed figure stood in the water, its face hidden by a deep hood. In one spindly, clawed hand it held the end of the hair that Keith had sent out. “You are foolish to enter Death so close to my domain, little Abhorsen.” The voice sounded female, though it was raspy and deep. 

Keith raised his sword to a guard position. “Who are you?” he demanded. She didn’t smell of death like the lost souls that wandered this realm. But the Dead were not the only dangers here. 

All that was visible under the shadow of her hood was a narrow chin and twin markings running down her cheeks like tear-tracks. Keith shivered and didn’t know why. She said, “I’ll deal with Abhorsen herself soon enough, but for now I can’t let you talk to her.” She pinched the hair in her fingers and it smoked and burned. The little flame followed the hair back toward Keith’s hand, not even going out when it passed under the water. Keith snipped the hair with his sword before it could reach him. 

“What do you want?” Keith shouted, sword pointed now. 

She took a step toward him, and the current tugged her robes open. Under them, strapped to her chest, was a leather bandolier with seven bells. 

A necromancer.

“You!” Keith dashed forward, sword up, ready to swing. 

She let him get very close. A hair’s breadth away from striking distance. She let him believe he would hit her. But then she held up one hand toward him and violet-tinged electricity arced from one finger to another. Free magic filled the air, hot and acrid. The electricity in her hand sprang away from her and toward Keith. Faster than he could respond, almost faster than he could see. It ducked around his sword and found the center of his chest. 

Keith had trained as a Charter mage, a necromancer, and a swordfighter. He’d undergone mental and physical trials most people didn’t even know existed. He’d felt the bone-deep stab of a backfired spell. He’d burned his tongue on Free magic. The Dead had bitten, gouged, bludgeoned, and nearly disemboweled him. He’d bruised and cut himself on practice swords, broken fingers and ribs and, twice, an arm. 

He’d never known pain like this. 

He fell, and the water swallowed the sound of his screams. The river swirled around him, sensing his weakness and distress, leaping at the chance to sweep him downstream. He tried to get his feet under him, but his limbs were not his own. They writhed and kicked helplessly. The electricity coursed through the water and held him transfixed. 

Somehow, he kept his grip on the sword. Through the murky water he saw the Charter symbols flare on the blade, and through the pain he felt his own Charter mark glow to answer. The Charter’s protection loosened the grip of Free magic just enough. It gave him the use of one arm. With his sword still clutched in his hand he clawed at the riverbed, pulling himself back toward the veil and throwing himself through. 

His body was already screaming when he returned to it. He wasn’t kneeling anymore. His face was in the dirt, his arms and legs curled up protectively. There were people around him. Hands on him. Voices shouting. His muscles spasmed once or twice more as the memory of the electricity coursing through them faded. 

“KEITH!” he could finally understand Shiro’s voice well enough to hear how terrified he was. 

“I’m okay!” he shouted, panicked and breathless. He took a deep breath and forced himself to be calm. The pain was gone, and its source could not follow him into Life. Her body was somewhere far away. “I’m okay,” he repeated, and this time he sounded like it. 

“What happened?” said Pidge. 

“She was there,” said Keith. He shifted himself into a sitting position and brushed the dirt off himself, though he didn’t trust his legs to stand yet. “The necromancer.” 

Shiro’s eyes went wide. Then they flicked down, and his hand reflexively went to where his shoulder met his neck. He scratched there and winced. “Purple lightning?” he said quietly. 

“Yeah,” Keith breathed. And then his fear was replaced by rage at the thought that Shiro had also felt the bite of that lightning, but there had been no escape for him. 

“What do we do?” said Hunk. 

Keith peered back out at the inky landscape. He tried to pick out those yellow eyes again, but the creature was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it had showed itself as a warning, and was now on its way back to its master. But probably not. 

There were only three miles between the horizon and their camp. Near enough that the distance could be closed in a single night by even the slowest, shambling Dead. And while the Dead could not cross into the Diamond of Protection, they couldn’t allow themselves to be surrounded and besieged. 

“We have to keep moving,” said Shiro, seeming to read Keith’s mind. A groan went up from the others. 

“If we can stay ahead of it through the night, it won’t be able to follow us while the sun is up,” said Keith. He stood and started gathering his pack together. 

“We need to rest sometime,” Lance complained. He looked skeptical. But he hadn’t seen those eyes. 

“I’m with Keith,” said Hunk. “If there’s a monster coming this way I don’t want to fall asleep.” 

Pidge’s pack was already on her back. “One time I got so focused on a candle that I didn’t sleep for three days. This is nothing.” 

“Fine!” Lance huffed. “But there had better be some comfy beds when we get to that glacier.” 

They struck the camp they had just made and re-outfitted themselves with armor, weapons, and packs. Hunk snuffed the campfire with a wave of his hand. Keith scuffed his toe across one line of the Diamond. Pidge’s candles went out, and the bright lines between them fizzled as they died. Groping their way through the dark, they marched forward on weary feet. 

The daytime journey had been trying. At night, it was terrible. They tripped over rocks and slipped down inclines. It was slow going. The sounds of packs rustling, boots scraping, and muttered curses at stubbed toes were all around. Keith dropped to the back so he could keep an eye on everyone, four figures silhouetted against the stars. They were moving toward the mountain, however slowly. All they needed was to get enough of a lead on the creature for safety. Then they could sleep for a few hours in the morning, when the sun forced the Dead into hiding. 

Shiro slowed, dropping to the back of the group with Keith. Keith stepped up to meet him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m actually feeling stronger now. I just needed to talk to you.” 

“What is it?”

Shiro looked back. “It’s following us,” he said. “I can feel it. I can’t explain how. I knew as soon as I saw its eyes that it wouldn’t stop until it caught us. Now it’s like a breath on the back of my neck. It’s coming.”

Keith turned, too. Nothing stirred in the darkness behind them. “The Dead are slow,” he said. “They don’t get tired, but they’re walking on rotten bones. We’re faster.” 

Shiro seemed to accept that, though he kept looking back every few minutes, and he didn’t leave Keith’s side. 

Around midnight, they stopped to rest their legs. Hunk pulled out the dinner they’d never gotten a chance to eat, and they gobbled it down. Everyone was tired, but morale was good. Every hour of marching was more distance between them and their pursuer. They were going to make it. 

Keith scanned the horizon. Then his heart skipped a beat. The yellow lights were back. It was too dark to see the shape they were attached to, but there they were in the long, dark smudge between their feet and the sky. Dancing, flickering. Running. It was closer than before. Catching up. 

“Damn it,” Keith muttered, and pointed it out to the others. “I guess this is one of the fast ones.” 

They’d failed to gain a lead. Now all they wanted was to not get caught. 

They pressed forward again, faster this time. But Pidge was lagging, and Lance was at the end of his patience. Even Hunk was starting to falter. Shiro walked beside him in the dark. Wordlessly, thoughtlessly, each of them reached out for the other’s hand and held it. Keith supposed Shiro did it to make sure they didn’t lose track of each other, but for him it was also a comfort. 

He kept his eyes on the mountain and forced himself not to look back. A few hours later, he chanced a peek. The yellow eyes were even closer now, and they were not alone. Smaller yellow pinpricks danced all around their leader. Dozens of them. 

When a faint glow appeared on the eastern horizon, Keith almost shouted with joy. They were so close to safety. They just had to stay ahead until the dawn broke and they could rest. 

Then the wind blew on their backs, and Keith caught the sharp scent of Free magic and Death. The sound of footfalls pattered, then boomed behind them. Keith stopped running, Shiro with him. One by one, the others did too. 

Coming over the rise they’d just cleared was a humanoid lump of horror. It was not made of the squirmy shadow-stuff that Keith had seen with the lost souls in Death nor in the Mordaut. It was a nightmare made of solid flesh. Eight feet tall, with lumpy limbs the girth of small trees. Horns sprouted from its head and yellow fire burned behind its eyes and in its mouth. Its skin was not skin, but a rust-red ooze with splotches of rotten green hardened over a misshapen frame. At the joints and creases the outer shell had cracked to reveal seeping brown earth and dripping fire from within. 

A Mordicant. The most powerful of Lesser Dead revenants. Its body was molded from bog-clay and blood, and a powerful dead soul was inside. It had little free will of its own. It was completely reliant on its master, a necromancer. Mordicants were huge and incredibly strong, but they could be beaten. They were barely sentient. Four Charter mages working together could outsmart one. 

“It’s coming,” said Keith. “We have to stand and fight.” 

The Mordicant approached. At its heels, a swarm of weaker Dead Hands. Fire dripped from its mouth and nostrils. It bounded like a bear to close the last of the gap. And when it straightened again, Keith saw something that almost made him drop his sword. 

Cutting across the rotten, burning flesh from shoulder to hip was a stripe of clean black leather. Seven pouches hung from a bandolier, each with a handle protruding. It was impossible. Mordicants were animals. They couldn’t work magic, much less necromancy. 

But there was no mistaking it. 

The Mordicant was wearing bells.


	10. Keith, in the thick of it

“ _This_ is the necromancer?” said Keith.

The Mordicant towered before them, advancing slowly. Its inhuman body dripped mud and flames. It could not have been more different from the spindly, feminine witch who’d ambushed him in the First Precinct. Sometimes souls looked different from their bodies, but not like this. 

Shiro was beside him, sword drawn. Even exhausted, holding a weapon in his off hand, and with the memories of years of trauma ringing in his head, he was ready to fight. Keith’s heart swelled. “Can’t be,” said Shiro. “They’re not the same bells.” 

He was right. This bandolier was pitch black and made of heavy leather. The ones beneath the witch’s robe had been more delicately made, with yellow detail on the clasps and edges. His mind raced to make sense of it. A Mordicant was for brute strength. You wouldn’t put as powerful and rare a weapon as necromantic bells on an attack dog. “This doesn’t make any sense,” said Keith. 

“Doesn’t matter,” said Shiro. “We have to defend ourselves, whatever it is.” 

Now that the Mordicant knew it had them, it slowed and seemed to consider its plan of attack. Two of the smaller Hands kept rushing forward, stumbling on their long-dead legs. They were less horrific than the Mordicant – smaller, with mottled flesh instead of burning bog-mud and glassy stares instead of the fiery rage of the Mordicant’s eyes. They were little more than corpses, their ghosts locked loosely inside them to keep them moving. But they were strong, and they didn’t feel pain. In large numbers they could be dangerous even to an experienced mage. 

Keith was about to step forward and engage when the Hands suddenly went down under a barrage of Charter-bolts. One took a hit to the face and fell, headless. The other had its upper body obliterated by two rapid-fire impacts. Hunk stood with his hand outstretched. “We can take them!” he said. 

Pidge threw her bag on the ground and practically dove into it, rummaging for the right candle. 

For a moment, Keith let himself believe that they could win. 

Then the Mordicant unclipped Saraneth from its bandolier and rang it. 

It didn’t use any of the intricate patterns that Keith had learned from Krolia and from the Book. It swung it like a cudgel, producing a sound like a steeple bell. All strength. No technique. Keith let the sound wash over him, and shook off the claws that tried to dig into his mind. He’d spent half his life learning to resist the power of the bells. An artless wielder like the Mordicant had no chance against him. 

“Keith! Look out!” said Shiro’s panicked voice. 

A flash of steel from beside him. Before he had time to register what was happening, instinct and muscle memory made him raise his sword to block the attack. Metal clashed on metal. Shiro’s sword was knocked aside. Only then did Keith’s brain catch up with his arm. Shiro had just attacked him. 

There he stood, sword still in hand. He held his body strangely, and his limbs jerked as if fighting against their own movements. As he wound up to strike again, he said, “It’s not me!” 

Keith reached out with his mind and could see Saraneth’s power swirling around Shiro like smoke. Too late, he remembered. The bells were Free magic. No matter how strong his will, Shiro couldn’t keep them out. 

When Shiro lunged for him again, Keith was ready. He sidestepped the overhand swing and dove inside the arc of the blade. He grabbed Shiro – his palm on his forehead, his fingers in his hair – and pushed the smoke away. A more skilled necromancer than the Mordicant would have been able to sink the binding deeper, where Keith couldn’t reach it. But the Mordicant could only make Saraneth sing loudly, not subtly. Charter magic flared in Keith’s hand as he cleared the song from Shiro’s ears. 

Shiro stumbled, then straightened as he regained control of his limbs. “What was that?” he demanded shakily. 

Keith pointed at the Mordicant with his sword. “It’s the bells!” he said. “We have to get in close enough to stop it from ringing them!” 

“Keith, watch out!” Before Keith could deal with the Mordicant, Shiro’s warning made him turn. Pidge had drawn her dagger and was rushing him, eyes wide and confused. Keith cursed under his breath. He should have thought of that. Pidge had the protection of a Charter mark, but no training in resisting the bells. The others were vulnerable, too. 

Shiro scooped Pidge up before she could reach Keith. Then Hunk approached from the other direction and aimed a punch at Shiro’s face. Shiro moved to block him, but belatedly realized that he didn’t have an arm on that side. The punch turned his head and made him spit blood, but he stayed on his feet. 

“Sorry!” Hunk shouted as he raised his other fist.

Before Hunk could attack again, Lance leaped onto his back and hooked his bow under his chin. Hunk staggered backwards away from Shiro, waving his arms and grunting. For a moment Keith thought the Mordicant’s suggestions had gotten confused, until he saw that Lance’s movements were strong and purposeful, his eyes were focused and angry. 

“Little help, here?!” Lance shouted as he worked to keep from getting thrown off Hunk’s shoulders. So, he’d managed to resist Saraneth. Maybe he was naturally resilient against Free magic. But Keith suspected he was just too stubborn to follow orders, even from the Dead. 

“Hold him still!” said Keith as he leaped to close the distance. 

Shiro still had Pidge dangling in his arm, barely holding her dagger away from his chest. “Keith, show me how!” he called out as Keith ran. 

This time, as Keith summoned the same Charter marks he’d used on Shiro, he spoke their names out loud, rapid-fire. Each one swirled in his hand as he called it, and when they were all present and in the correct pattern, he pressed them to Hunk’s head and freed him from his binding. There were twelve components to this spell. Most were basic marks that he and Shiro had learned as children. Three were rare; he wasn’t sure if Shiro knew them. One, Keith had learned from a book in the Abhorsen’s library, and had never seen it anywhere else.

As Keith had known he could, Shiro memorized and reproduced them perfectly on Pidge. But while the marks were correct, his casting was shaky. Pidge stopped attacking him. But when he dropped her, she stood hunched over and shaking, resisting the remnants of the Mordicant’s control. 

“I can fight it,” she told them. 

“Guys!” Hunk shouted a warning and pointed at the Mordicant. Keith looked up in time to see that it had switched bells. Saraneth was back in its bandolier, and it was holding Kibeth. 

It was too late to stop the bell from ringing. Keith ran back toward Shiro, dove into him, and clapped his hands over his ears just as the bell sounded. The Charter flared in his hands to keep the sound of the bell at bay. A manic tune accosted them, coaxing them to dance along with it, and Keith had to focus to keep his own feet planted on the ground. 

Shiro was staring at Keith, surprised by their sudden closeness. Then his eyes flicked up, looking past him, and they widened. His arm wrapped around Keith’s back, picking him up and spinning him away from the grasping fingers and gnashing teeth of the Hand that had crept up behind him. He let go of Keith to obliterate the monster with a backhanded swing of his sword. His footwork was precise – he’d avoided Kibeth’s control. 

Hunk, too, was covering his own ears and protecting himself with the same marks Keith had used. The others hadn’t been so lucky. Pidge, still paralyzed by Saraneth, had no defense against the next bell. Its song gripped her legs and she turned and ran. If no one stopped her, Kibeth’s song would keep her running until her heart gave out and her body tore itself apart. Meanwhile, Lance was flailing his arms as his feet shuffled him helplessly toward a group of approaching, hungry Hands. 

“Hunk!” Keith shouted, pointing after Pidge’s fleeing form. “Catch her!” Hunk didn’t question him. He was after her in an instant, huffing and puffing. Keith didn’t wait to see if he would close the gap. He caught Lance by the back of his armor and dragged him away from the grasping Dead. 

This was ridiculous. They couldn’t let this thing keep them on the defensive. Keith looked up at their enemy only to find a new horror. The Mordicant had another bell in its claw. The fifth holster in its bandolier was open and empty. 

Belgaer. So far, the Mordicant had only toyed with control over their bodies. Keith couldn’t risk letting it affect their minds. 

Lance was clinging to Keith like a lifeline, his feet still trying to carry him into danger. Keith shoved him into Shiro’s grasp instead. “Keep him out of my way!” Keith shouted over his shoulder as he turned and rushed the Mordicant. 

The closer he got, the more the monster towered over him. It was taller than he was by at least two feet, and over four times as broad. He didn’t know if he stood a chance against it alone. But he didn’t have to kill it. For now, he just had to keep the bells out of its hands. 

He jumped to swing at Belgaer before the Mordicant had a chance to ring it. As dull as its Dead mind was, to use bells it had to have some instinct toward caution. A mis-rung bell was just as dangerous for its wielder as it was for those nearby. Sure enough, the Mordicant folded the bell in against its putrid flesh to prevent Keith’s sword from hitting it. 

It turned and tried to ring it again, but Keith was there. This time his sword bit into the creature’s wrist and it recoiled with a howl. It tried to raise its arm up out of Keith’s reach, but Keith called up the Charter marks he’d once mastered in order to climb the wall at Belisaere and easily leaped to cut it again. The Mordicant jammed the bell back into its bandolier rather than risk losing it. 

Keith pressed the attack. He had the Mordicant on its heels. Feinting and jabbing and slashing, he danced just outside of range of its claws. His blade flashed with Charter marks and sizzled whenever it touched Dead flesh. 

The Mordicant grabbed his blade, rage overcoming pain. The metal smoked in its hand, but it roared in Keith’s face and threw him to the ground. Keith scrambled upright and got ready to attack again. Before he could, the Mordicant was bearing down on him. He had to duck, then roll out of the way as its burning claws raked the air around him. One claw skittered over the scales of his armor. A glancing blow, but the force was enough to spin him around and slam him back into the hard dirt. 

It was strong. Incredibly strong. Keith coughed, wiped the mud off his face, and got back up. 

He landed a couple more decent blows, but he couldn’t do more than bite at the Mordicant’s hands and ankles. It was too dangerous to get in close. And he was being overpowered. It was all he could do to keep his sword in front of him, to keep those claws from finding his flesh. He didn’t have time to use his pipes, what little use they might be against a creature like this. He didn’t even have space anymore to draw a Charter mark, though he tried. Every time he half-completed a mark, he would have to dodge or parry again and his spell would fizzle. Though he managed to keep the Mordicant’s hands off its bells, as long as he was at close quarters it could also keep him from bringing his magic to bear. 

Then he felt something grab him from behind. Cold, strong fingers closed on his shoulder and snaked around his neck. One of the Hands had snuck up on him. He turned his sword around and stabbed it backwards into the thing’s chest. Its grasping hands fell away. 

That was the opening the Mordicant had needed. By the time Keith saw its claw swinging for him, it was too late to dodge. It hit him full force, and then time seemed to skip because the next thing he knew he was on the ground. He couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. Every time he tried, the left side of his ribcage screamed. His left arm was numb. His right arm still held the sword, but it was suddenly too heavy to swing. He tried to stand. His legs scraped the dirt, but were too weak to lift him. 

The Mordicant leaped at him with a triumphant roar. Keith closed his eyes. 

The pain he’d braced himself for didn’t come. When he opened his eyes again, Shiro was standing over him, body rigid and straining, arm up, the Mordicant’s claws on his sword. “Keith!” he said through gritted teeth. “Get out of here!”

The Mordicant clenched its claws. Shiro’s sword shattered in its hand, leaving him holding a hilt attached to six inches of broken blade. It followed its swing through. Claws raked over Shiro’s armor, skittering over metal and finally finding purchase on his side just below his rib cage. Rivets popped and leather tore. Blood spattered on the ground. 

“No!” Keith grunted, without enough air in his lungs to shout. 

Shiro, amazingly, was still on his feet. He clutched at the hole in his armor and his hand came away dripping. 

The Mordicant swung again. Shiro raised his broken sword. Charter magic coiled around his hand, around the hilt and what was left of the blade. It flashed out from the broken face of the metal in a tapering point. A sword made of Charter magic. But it wasn’t enough. The marks crawled over the ghostly blade sluggishly, and its form was indistinct. Shiro was too rushed, too hurt to cast it properly. 

From the ground, Keith reached out and brushed his fingers against Shiro’s ankle. Shiro already had the marks in place. Keith just loaned him some strength and some focus. 

Shiro’s Charter-blade caught fire. It was no longer a pale, delicate taper. It was a scimitar of whirling flame. The Mordicant swatted at it, then snatched its hand away in pain as the burn of the clean Charter overcame the corrupted fire inside it. Some of the rotten shell fell away from its hand where the blade had touched, and from the wound it bled rotten earth and long-congealed blood. 

The Mordicant swung again. Shiro’s sword slashed a hole in its arm from elbow to wrist. The Mordicant backed away, recoiling from the heat of the sword. But even with the two of them working together, they couldn’t sustain this fire. The summoned sword was already beginning to sputter and fade. This was their chance to escape, now, while the Mordicant was hesitating. 

Shiro didn’t try to escape. He rushed in. 

Keith finally managed to draw a full breath. As he watched Shiro dive toward the Mordicant, he used it to scream his name. 

The Mordicant tried to meet him with an attack, but its claws found only air. Shiro ducked one swipe of its claws, then another, dodging and weaving as the sword flickered in his hand. He was inside the Mordicant’s fearsome reach, now. Inches from being crushed by the next bone-breaking blow. The Mordicant raised both its arms over its head, getting ready to bring them down on Shiro’s head. Shiro ran, dove, and skidded on his knees. His momentum took him past the Mordicant’s attack, under its arm, past its hip. In its final seconds before its flame went out, the sword bit into bog-flesh and seared its way through enchanted leather. 

Shiro sprang back to his feet, behind the Mordicant now. The fiery sword was gone. He held only a broken hilt. And there was something else in his hand. 

Shiro pulled, and the bandolier slipped off the creature’s chest. Shiro had the black bells. 

The Mordicant roared with ear-splitting rage. For a second it teetered, unsure whether to finish smashing Keith or to whirl on Shiro. In that second, Shiro gathered up the bandolier he’d cut off the creature and tossed it to Keith. 

The Mordicant dove to intercept it. Keith reached out with a string of Charter marks to lift it out of the creature’s grasp. It flew to him. 

While the Mordicant tried to figure out what had happened, Keith ran his hand over the clasps on the bandolier. He chose Ranna, the safest and most reliable out of them. As he unbuckled its clasp, he pushed his pain and panic aside. With one hand he held the bell. With the other he wove a Charter spell of protection and placed it between himself and Shiro. The bell jumped in his hand. It was a wilder version than the Abhorsen’s bells he’d trained with, and it resisted an unfamiliar master. He steadied his hand, aimed all his will at the Mordicant, and swung his arm. 

The bell rang true, but muted. Keith had sacrificed power for control. 

The Mordicant sagged. One of its great knobbed knees dropped to the ground. It shook itself, fighting its sleepiness, dried blood flaking off its skin as it moved. Its movements were sluggish. But it was not down. 

Keith was preparing to ring Ranna again when something grabbed the back of his coat and tried to drag him away. Another Hand. Keith was about to cut it down when it suddenly let go of him and staggered back a few steps. An arrow was protruding from the center of its chest. It looked up, nonplussed, just in time for a second arrow to pierce it between the eyes. It went down in a heap. 

Keith looked behind him. From across the field, he saw that Lance was nocking another arrow. “Got your back, Spooks!” he shouted. Pidge and Hunk were nowhere to be seen. 

Lance fired again, and another Hand went down. A third appeared from out of nowhere to try to wrestle the bells away from Keith, but it fell with Shiro’s broken sword protruding from the back of its neck. “Where are they all coming from?” Shiro panted. 

They were coming from everywhere, it seemed. The Mordicant had been faster than them, but now they were catching up. What Keith had thought were a few reinforcements were turning out to be a small army. Dozens of them crested the hill, poured out of the grass, and swarmed around the Mordicant’s feet. As one solid mass they advanced on Shiro and Keith. Keith tried to raise his sword, but his ribs kept him doubled over. Shiro didn’t look much better. Blood was dripping on the ground from his wound in a steady stream. 

Neither of them had to say it. It was time to run. 

Keith sheathed his sword. With one hand he gripped the wadded-up bandolier. With the other he grabbed Shiro’s elbow and pulled him along. 

When they reached Lance, he was loosing arrow after arrow into the pack of Hands. For each one he felled, two more appeared to take its place. A couple of hundred yards past him, Keith spotted Hunk and Pidge. He couldn’t tell what kind of state they were in, but at least they were farther from danger than the rest of them. 

“Let’s get out of here!” Keith barked as he approached. “Leave the packs. Just run!”

Lance paused only to toss his bow onto his back and scoop up Pidge’s little bag of candles. The rest, they left behind. They ran, fear making them forget their exhaustion and their wounds for one last push. With the Mordicant temporarily disabled, they might be able to gain some ground. But then what? Keith couldn’t think that far ahead. He just had to get Shiro out of reach of that army of Dead. 

Shiro’s arm slipped out of Keith’s grip. When Keith looked back, Shiro was stumbling. He ran back to catch him, but he couldn’t hold him up. Shiro fell onto his knees. His hand was on his wound, and blood was pouring from between his fingers. 

“Just go,” he said. 

“No way,” Keith replied. 

The Dead were stumbling after them. Not far off. They weren’t terribly fast, but they didn’t have to be. Not when their quarry was standing still. “Run!” Shiro shouted. 

“NOT WITHOUT YOU!” 

The Dead were almost upon them. Keith tossed the broken bandolier over his shoulder so that the bells fell down his chest. He touched Ranna, then Saraneth. Then his hand dipped lower, and brushed the seventh bell. 

Astarael. A necromancer’s final option. Surrounded by enemies and with no hope of survival, Astarael would avenge him. Ring it, and all who heard it would die. Including the ringer. Keith had never drawn Astarael from Krolia’s bandolier. Krolia didn’t even like for him to touch it. But somehow, he’d always felt that he would have to ring it one day. 

“Keith…” Shiro wasn’t watching the approaching Dead. He was looking up at Keith. His mouth hung open, brimming with words there was no time to speak. 

Keith’s hand slipped off the bandolier. Unlike the other bells, there was no protection from Astarael. As much as he would have liked to drag all his enemies down with him, he could not bear to be the one to kill Shiro. He raised his sword and faced the Dead. He would have to kill and be killed the old-fashioned way. 

“You, down there!” said a voice. 

Keith looked up. He blinked. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his dirty, blood-caked hand. 

He wasn’t seeing things. 

There was a Paperwing in the sky above them. 

It circled low over their heads. He tried to see if it was the black ship of the Royals, or if it could possibly be his own red one somehow repaired. But it was neither; this one was as blue as the sky. Someone was leaning over the side, but in the dim morning light Keith couldn’t make out any details beyond a cloud of long, curly hair. 

It swooped down and landed next to Keith and Shiro. “Get in!” shouted the pilot. She was a young woman, tall and delicate but with an air of strength about her. She was wearing elegant white robes with blue and pink panels, there was a circlet of moonstone on her head, and over her heart was a badge in the shape of a seven-pointed star. 

That star belonged to the Clayr.


	11. Lance, along for the ride

This was only Lance’s second ride in a Paperwing, and he had already decided that he didn’t like them. His first time had been a disaster. Keith had overdone it and almost killed them all. This time it was the opposite problem. The dang thing wouldn’t go. 

The canoe-shaped fuselage only had one seat. Two people could have fit pretty easily, and back in Belisaere they’d done four with a little trouble. The thing definitely was not made to hold six. Keith had practically thrown Shiro and himself into it, Lance hadn’t been far behind, and by the time they’d skimmed the grass to scoop up Hunk and Pidge it was clear that the little craft was feeling the weight. Instead of soaring through the sky, it skimmed thirty feet above the ground at about the speed of a trotting horse. The monster on the ground bounded after them, howling at the sky with fire shooting out of its mouth. 

“Make it go faster!” he yelled at Keith. 

Keith was collapsed on the floor, pale and panting. Lance remembered that Keith had just come from fighting that terrible thing, and he almost felt bad, but then Keith gave his usual infuriating sneer and said, “Oh, because that worked out so well for us back in Belisaere?!” 

“Give me a break, man! I just kept those Hands from eating you!” 

Keith didn’t look grateful. “I’ll tell you what, next time we’ll trade! I’ll take pot shots from a distance and you can fight the Mordicant!” 

A sweet, melodic voice piped up from the front of the Paperwing, “I’m sorry, I’m doing the best I can!” She turned, and Lance got his first real look at their savior. She was a woman, and she was stunningly pretty. Her long, curly, white hair looked like it had recently been tied up in a bun, but the wind had pulled most of it free and it was trailing behind her like a cloud. Her skin was brown, and her eyes shockingly blue. Her speech had the soft vowels of the northern countries. She whistled to the Paperwing, light and cajoling, and it sped up the tiniest bit.

“No, no!” Lance was quick to say. “You’re doing amazing. No problem at all.” 

“Not that we’re complaining, but why did you save us?” said Shiro through gritted teeth. He was beside Keith, toward the back of the Paperwing, and he looked terrible. Not that he’d looked great since they found him in the reservoir – the man looked like he’d gone through a meat grinder. But now he held a fresh wound in his side that was dripping blood onto the blue paper below him. 

“My name is Allura,” the woman answered. “I was sent as a representative of the Clayr. The Nine Day Watch wishes to speak with you, your highness. Although I admit we did not foresee your… entourage. The extra weight may prove a problem.” 

Pidge had been huddled miserably by Allura’s feet, clearly shaken by her first brush with a necromancer’s bells. But she recovered enough to peer over the edge, back at the chasing horde. “No, it’s okay,” she sighed. “We’re getting away.” 

Lance and Hunk joined her. Sure enough, even wobbling and limping along, the Paperwing was faster than the monsters below. The Dead slowed down as they fell behind, watching their quarry escape. If Keith had been right about them not being able to travel in daylight, then they were safe. The sun was in the sky now. 

They flew for most of the morning. Keith and Hunk worked together to heal Shiro’s wound while Lance pretended not to watch. They pulled Charter marks out of thin air and weaved them as deftly as Lance’s mother weaved textiles. The light sank into Shiro’s skin and knitted it together. When they were done, the wound had stopped bleeding. It wasn’t gone, but it looked like it had happened a few days ago instead of minutes. 

It wasn’t like Lance was stupid. He’d been baptized. He knew some marks. He could write them in ink, and he could pronounce their names. But he couldn’t weave them the way the Royals and the Wallmakers did. The way Keith and his mom did. The way even Hunk could. If he tried to summon more than one at a time, they all fell apart in his hands. Anything more than the simplest cantrips were beyond him. His guard captain told him he just didn’t have the talent. No shame in that. Plenty of people didn’t. But the guards with magic went into a separate unit and tended to rise through the ranks faster. Lance had had to nurture other talents just to keep up. 

Keith tried to keep going, but the Charter marks he was drawing were flickering and fading like a lamp with no oil. His hands were shaking. He was beat. They all were. Finally, Shiro reached up and grabbed his hands to still them. Only then did Keith give up and lie down in the bottom of the Paperwing. He fell asleep instantly. The others, Lance included, followed suit. 

When Lance opened his eyes, the sun was high in the sky. It was midday, or maybe a little later. He felt like no time had passed at all. Allura’s whistling had become loud and insistent – that’s what had woken him up. He peered over the edge of the Paperwing. Despite Allura’s efforts, they were slowly sinking out of the air.

When they found their way down onto the grass, the gentle bump of the Paperwing settling to earth woke the others. Allura gave it a couple more sharp whistles, and wind gusted around them, but the Paperwing’s eyes flashed in anger and it stayed stubbornly put. 

“It won’t go any farther,” Allura told them. “Not with such a heavy load.” 

“That’s okay,” said Keith. He looked up at the mountain. Only then did Lance notice how much closer it was. It seemed as though they’d covered almost half the distance in one morning. They must have left the Mordicant far behind. “This is a good place to make camp.”

Allura frowned. “We should keep moving. The sooner we reach the glacier…”

“Lady,” Hunk sighed as he rolled out of the Paperwing. “We just ran from one sunrise to the next and got our butts handed to us by a flaming bog-monster. None of us are going anywhere.” 

It wasn’t much of a camp. They’d left most of their supplies back on the battlefield in their escape. Their beds, their provisions, and the rest were probably being trampled by Dead now. The best comfort anyone could give was when Pidge took a fat little candle out of her bag and blew it to life. She set it down in an open patch of dirt a safe distance from the Paperwing, and soon it had expanded into a crackling campfire. Everyone gravitated toward its warmth. They were getting higher into the foothills now, and even in the early afternoon it was cold. 

Pidge crouched by the fire and stared into it with tired, haunted eyes. Hunk sat down and hugged his knees to his chest. Shiro winced as he sat, holding his side. Lance had thought his wound looked better, but apparently it was still bothering him. Keith, of course, took his usual place at Shiro’s right hand. Or where his right hand would have been. 

Allura’s robes billowed out around her as she sat. As soon as she’d picked a spot, Lance joined her. 

It was Shiro who broke the silence. “I didn’t expect the Clayr to get involved in the business of the Royals,” he said.

“We care not for the politics of Belisaere,” said Allura. “But you, your highness, are our business. We have been aware for years of a dark force building in the west. We’ve convened the Nine Day Watch many times, trying to scry into its nature, but our Sight is always turned away. You have seen this darkness in person.”

Shiro looked away. Keith answered for him. “There is a necromancer in the borderlands. That was her Mordicant and her Hands we were fighting.” 

Allura’s cute little shoulders rose and fell as she sighed. “It is as we feared. It would have to be a powerful Free magic entity to avoid our Sight. And even then…” She seemed troubled, but she continued. “The Prince must come to the glacier and meet with the Watch. Perhaps with the information he has, we can focus our Sight more clearly.” 

Keith opened his mouth to speak, but he’d already had his chance to talk to Allura. Lance cut in instead. “No problem. That Paperwing of yours will get us there by nightfall if we get it going at full speed. I know. I’ve been in Paperwings plenty of times.”

“You’ve been…?” Pidge started to say. Lance shushed her. 

“I’m afraid we won’t achieve anywhere close to normal speed with the Paperwing so overloaded,” said Allura despondently. 

“Then just take Shiro. He’s the most important one,” Lance suggested. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Keith perk up. Lance thought he looked impressed. “And me, as his, uh, bodyguard. You can go back for the others tomorrow.” 

Keith no longer looked impressed. Lance only felt a little bit guilty. He’d heard stories about the Clayr’s glacier. A small city inside the mountain full of dark-skinned, white-haired girls. If they were all as beautiful as Allura then there was no way he was passing up the opportunity to spend tonight up there instead of out here in the cold. 

“No!” said Keith and Shiro at the same time. 

“Leave Lance,” said Keith. “Take Shiro and Pidge.” 

“Hey!” Pidge protested. “Don’t treat me like a kid!” 

“You’re not taking anybody,” said Shiro over the both of them. “We’re not splitting up the group.”

Keith put a hand on his shoulder. “Shiro, the Clayr have wards just like Abhorsen’s House. The necromancer can’t go anywhere near them. You could get in that Paperwing and be safe in a few hours.” 

Shiro didn’t even hesitate. He shook his head. “I’m not leaving the rest of you out here.” 

“It’s okay,” Keith tried to reason with him. “We have enough of a head start that the Dead won’t catch us. We’ll be right behind you.”

“We’re sticking together and that’s final,” said Shiro. 

Lance rolled his eyes. What a couple of drama cases. 

“Very well,” Allura chimed in when she sensed the debate was over. “I suppose we’ll continue all together on foot.” 

“In the morning!” Hunk quickly added. “Please say you mean tomorrow morning. Also, did you happen to bring anything to eat?” 

Allura had not brought anything to eat, so Pidge and Hunk wandered a short distance away to forage for food. It didn’t look to Lance like there was anything growing nearby, but Hunk insisted that there were underground tubers to be found. Lance was not looking forward to dinner. Keith and Shiro stayed sitting by the fire together to, Lance didn’t know, stare into each other’s eyes for a while? 

Allura left the fire to check on her Paperwing, which gave Lance the opening he needed. 

Lance sidled up to her as she bent over to look under the keel. “So,” he said, as smoothly as he was able, “you can see the future?”

Allura popped upright and said cheerfully, “I am gifted with the Sight. My premonitions are more powerful than some, but I would still need the combined power of the Nine Day Watch to truly see the future in a meaningful way. And even then, interpretation can be tricky.” 

That had been more of an answer than Lance was expecting. He cleared his throat and tried to recover. “Then… can you look into the future and tell me whether you and I end up on a date?”

The smile disappeared off Allura’s face and was replaced with a look of contempt that Lance was unfortunately too familiar with. “I think I was quite clear before that it doesn’t work like that.” 

She busied herself with the Paperwing, and Lance slinked away in defeat. 

He could see Pidge and Hunk on the next hill over, rummaging around at the base of a stand of windswept trees. He made his way over to them to see if he could help. Or at least, pretend to help while prodding some sympathy out of Pidge for his romantic plight. 

But when he got close, Hunk and Pidge were already deep in conversation and didn’t seem to notice his approach. They must have been feeling better after the fight, because Pidge had her trademark wicked smile on and Hunk was talking a mile a minute. 

“Yeah, he came to my village a few times over the years, but he didn’t really talk about Shiro. I mean, I knew he had a friend in Belisaere and I think I knew he was a Royal. But you know Keith, he doesn’t open up about his life.”

“Yep,” said Pidge with a long-suffering sigh. 

Hunk went on. “Now seeing them together, wow, Keith is kind of intense about the guy, right? And not just in the you’ve-been-dead-for-two-years-and-I’m-happy-to-see-you way. More like the I-would-literally-die-for-you way.” 

Pidge’s eyebrows rose so high they disappeared under her fringe. “Yyyyep!” she confirmed. 

“Is it just me, or…” Hunk trailed off. He fidgeted and winced, nervous that he’d crossed a line. 

Pidge was quick to reassure him. “Oh no, it’s not just you. They’ve been that way since forever.” 

“Then have they ever…”

“No. And they never will, because they’re both useless when it comes to each other. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Hunk sputtered, “How can they not? I mean, Keith was like…” And here Hunk scowled dramatically and made his voice a parody of Keith’s. “ _Shiro._ You must leave me behind because I don’t care about my own safety. You are the only one who matters!”

Pidge cackled, then deepened her voice and made it sound grand and dramatic. “No, Keith. I would never abandon you. I mean the team. But mostly you.” 

Lance changed his mind. He didn’t want Pidge’s help with Allura, after all. 

“You guys having any luck finding us some dinner?” Lance called out to them. 

Hunk held up a couple of sickly-looking roots. So, no. 

Lance joined them in digging the hard-packed dirt between the tree roots, but all he was getting for his trouble was cold fingers. After a while he flopped down to sit with his back against one of the spindly trees. Taking a break, he told himself. 

“What are you pouting about?” said Pidge. 

He grappled with the air, trying to find a shape to his frustration. It wasn’t just Allura. It was everything since he’d snuck away from his barracks the night they left Belisaere. Like a grand adventure was happening around him, and he wasn’t expected to be a part of it. “I don’t know, Pidge,” he sighed. “Why am I even here?” 

“I hope you don’t mean in the cosmic sense because I’m too hungry to have that conversation right now,” said Hunk as he yanked another anemic-looking root out of the ground. 

“Ha-ha,” said Lance flatly. “You know what I mean. I’m surrounded by Charter mages. You’ve got your candle thing, Keith’s got his spooky thing. Shiro’s the reason we’re doing any of this and he’s literal royalty. Allura’s so cool that she’s not even looking at me, and even Hunk can shoot magic spikes out of his hands. What do I bring to the table?”

He looked up to find both of them staring at him. Great. Now his thing was going to be depression and self-loathing. 

“Don’t be like that!” said Pidge. 

“Nah, I should just face it. Shiro would be better off if you and Keith had left me behind in Belisaere. One less person to weigh down the Paperwing.” 

“Hey guys,” said Hunk, crouching down and pointing east. “Not to interrupt Lance’s therapy session, but look!”

In the shadow of an outcrop about a hundred yards off, there was a big, brown rabbit hopping around and snuffling at the grass. It looked a little lean, but the meat on its bones was still way more food than what Hunk and Pidge had gathered. While the others discussed which Charter spell had the best chance of killing it without leaving it as a greasy smear on the rocks, Lance took his bow off his back. He sighted it, waited for the rabbit to be still, and loosed an arrow that pinned it like a bug through its center of mass. 

Pidge scampered down the scree to retrieve it. Hunk whacked Lance on the back, almost knocking him over. “Hey, maybe that’s your thing! You’re bow and arrow guy!” 

“I don’t know if that puts me on the level with five mages,” said Lance, but he was smiling in spite of himself. “Maybe if I had a magic bow or something…” 

Pidge returned holding Lance’s arrow, the rabbit dangling limply from it. “You want a magic bow?” she said. “Gimme it!” 

“Wait, you can do that?” said Lance, trading Pidge his bow for the rabbit. 

“You’re friends with a Wallmaker, bud,” said Hunk. “They’re scary. With enough time and resources, they can do anything.” 

Back at camp, they showed off their haul. 

Keith wrinkled his nose at the meager pickings. “Is that all?” he said

“You know what?” said Lance. “Just for that, you’re not getting any.” 

They shared the food between them (Shiro made him share with Keith, too). It didn’t satisfy anyone, but it took the edge off their hunger. A nearby stream trickling down from the glacier gave them water to drink, though it was so cold it hurt Lance’s teeth. They spent the afternoon taking a much-needed rest. When the sun began to sink, Hunk and Pidge cast a new Diamond of Protection around the camp and they all scooted close to the still-roaring fire. 

Lance eyed the darkness as he settled down to sleep. This is when it had all gone wrong the night before, and he half-expected the Mordicant to re-appear and make them run again. But the only sounds were the soft breath of the fire, the trickle of the creek, and the occasional scratch of a small animal out in the rocky landscape. No yellow eyes appeared in the darkness. Lance finally allowed himself to fall asleep. 

His eyes snapped open partway through the night. He knew instinctively that it was nowhere near dawn, but something had startled him awake. He was about to sit up and check on the others when the sound of someone clearing their throat made him roll over and look behind him. 

There was someone standing just outside their Diamond of Protection. 

Lance scuttled to his feet with a yelp. The others woke too – some blinking blearily and some instantly alert. Keith was on his feet before Lance was even done yelling, his sword raised (had he been sleeping with it in his hand?). 

“Who are you?!” Keith demanded. 

The stranger was tall and elegant. He wore leather armor that looked black at first, but when it caught the firelight Lance saw that it was tinged with purple. His hair was long and platinum-blond; his face was narrow and, Lance supposed, handsome. He wasn’t carrying any weapons that Lance could see, and he looked unconcerned, even amused, at the weapons currently being leveled at him. 

“My name is Lotor,” he said. “I noticed you having a spot of trouble with that Mordicant earlier today…

“And I thought I’d offer some assistance against my father.”


	12. Keith, forging ahead

They stared in stunned silence. Pidge was tense, one hand on her candles and the other on her dagger. Hunk was still rubbing his eyes and peering around curiously. Lance was up and alert. Shiro was awake, but still on the ground. His scabbard was empty. It took Keith a moment to remember that his sword had been destroyed. Keith positioned himself between Shiro and the newcomer, Abhorsen’s sword outstretched. 

Lotor smiled pleasantly and waited for them to catch up with what he had just said.

Allura was the first to regain her composure enough to respond, her voice full of disgust. “Your _father?_ ”

“The Mordicant pursuing you,” Lotor confirmed. “He was once a man. A necromancer. The father I knew is long gone, but his soul drives the creature you fought.”

Everyone was fully awake now, coiled and ready for the interaction to turn violent. Keith tried to get a sense of the man, but they were still inside the Diamond of Protection and he was outside. It was hard to tell from here whether he had the stench of death on him. There were a hundred other objections to his presence, but Keith only managed to say the first thing that came to his head. “When necromancers die, they come back as Greater Dead,” he said. “Not Mordicants.” 

Lotor held up a thoughtful finger and nodded at Keith as if he didn’t notice the sword Keith was threatening him with. “Only if they bring themselves back,” he said. “I’m afraid Zarkon’s current form is not of his own making.” 

“The other necromancer,” said Shiro. “In the borderlands.”

“Precisely, your highness,” said Lotor, and the way he said it made Keith’s hackles rise. Lotor clasped his hands behind his back and began slowly walking the perimeter of the Diamond. Six sets of eyes and the point of Keith’s sword followed him as he went. 

“So, you just want to help your father’s spirit find peace?” said Pidge, sounding far less suspicious than Keith though was warranted. 

“For a start,” said Lotor. “But I don’t want to deceive you. My connection to this conflict is even more personal than that.” 

Lotor had reached the side of the Diamond that Shiro was sitting against. As he drew near, Keith extended his sword across the boundary until the point of it was inches from Lotor’s neck. “That’s close enough,” Keith said. 

Lotor froze just out of reach of Keith’s blade, but he didn’t retreat. “Now, now,” he said. “I’m here to help, and at significant risk to myself. You have much more to gain by an alliance than I do.” 

Keith raised the tip of his blade and used it to brush aside the lock of hair that fell in front of Lotor’s face. Lotor didn’t so much as blink. Ever so gently, Keith touched the tip of his sword to Lotor’s forehead. The Charter marks on the blade glowed, and Keith’s own mark answered them by lighting up like a beacon in the darkness. 

No such light shined out of Lotor. Instead, an ugly, twisted scar crawled its way across his skin like a worm. A perversion of a Charter blessing. The brand of some Greater Dead master. Keith drew away, and the brand disappeared. 

Allura was at Keith’s side, shaking with rage. “You won’t help us against the Dead,” she spat. “You serve them!” 

A flash of annoyance crossed Lotor’s face, but he was otherwise unperturbed by the revelation. “I can explain,” he said. 

“No need,” said Lance as he nocked an arrow and aimed it at Lotor’s chest. 

Lotor opened his mouth to answer, but then reconsidered as he surveyed the suspicious and hostile faces turned toward him. “I can see we won’t be reaching any kind of agreement tonight,” he sighed. “I’ll take my leave. I wish you luck when the Dead catch up with you!” 

He turned and walked into the darkness, and was soon swallowed by it. Everyone stood, tense, until the soft sound of his footsteps quieted and disappeared in the distance. The night became quiet again, and still. Keith took no comfort from Lotor’s absence. Just because an enemy was out of sight did not mean the threat was gone. 

“We should go after him,” said Lance quietly. “Take him out before he can come back and catch us unaware.” The others were starting to settle back down now that the excitement was over. Lance remained by Keith, staring into the darkness. 

Keith shook his head. Lotor may have seemed soft-spoken and elegant, but that didn’t give them the first clue about his true nature. Plenty of monsters could look like men. “We don’t know what kind of fight we’d be starting,” he said. “We’re safer in here.” 

Behind them, the others were having a similar discussion. Allura was shaken and livid. Pidge was guarded. Hunk was the only one who seemed curious about what Lotor had been trying to say, but he was quickly being overruled. 

“We’re almost to the glacier,” Keith reminded them. “We just need to be a little more careful. Everyone get some sleep. I’ll keep watch for the rest of the night.” 

Shiro had been quiet so far. As the others curled back up near the fire, Keith sat beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You alright?”

“Maybe Hunk is right,” said Shiro, staring off into the darkness. “Lotor had information we could have used. Maybe we should have let him speak.” 

“We’re vulnerable out here. Once we get to the glacier, we can negotiate from a position of power.” He glanced northward. The glacier was invisible at this time of night. Keith could only see the mountains as a craggy patch of sky where the stars ended. They were so close. 

A gentle hand on his knee made him jump. He looked away from the mountain to find Shiro watching him, concerned. “You’re exhausted,” he said. “Let me take the first watch.”

“I’m fine,” Keith insisted. “You need the rest more than I do.” 

Shiro smiled sadly. His hand was still on Keith’s knee. His thumb moved back and forth absentmindedly. “It used to be me who looked after you,” he said. 

Keith wasn’t sure how to answer that, and while he was still searching for the words Shiro shrugged and laid down to sleep. 

Despite the anxiety Lotor’s visit had brought, the night was quiet and restful. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire, the wind through the sparse grass, and the occasional chitter of some small animal in the rocky tumble of the foothills. Keith watched from every quarter, half-expecting Lotor to re-emerge or for some other threat to make itself known. 

After an hour or so with no change, the others all snoring peacefully, Keith crept over to the Paperwing and fished around in the darkened interior until his hand found stiff leather. He took up the bells and brought them back to the fire where he could look at them. Despite having come from such a hulking wielder, the bells were smaller than expected. Each one was only a fraction bigger than the version Keith had practiced with. Even the handles were the same shape, though they were carved of ebony instead of ash. The bandolier itself was sturdy but narrow, as if it had once been made to fit around a much smaller chest than the Mordicant’s. When he held it up to the fire and peered closely, Keith could even see the seams where it had been lengthened. 

Perhaps Lotor had been telling the truth.

There were still a few hours until sunrise, so Keith busied himself with wiping the blood and bog-stench off the leather. When it was clean, he used his sword to trim the excess length off the bandolier and a simple mending spell to seal the ends back together. He slipped it over his head. With a few adjustments it fit as it was supposed to – Ranna by his shoulder, the larger bells hanging across his chest and by his hip, the bandolier fitting snugly across his back so it wouldn’t slip. 

Bandolier around his body. The sword in his hand. Keith didn’t feel like the Abhorsen, but perhaps now he looked the part. 

Carefully, Keith unclasped the smallest bell and held it in his hand, clapper pinched between his fingers to keep it from accidentally ringing. He was familiar with Krolia’s bells – they pulsed with Charter magic, and when Keith peered closely at them he could see the marks racing through the metal. But the bell in his hand had no such marks. These bells were the bells of a true necromancer. Untouched by the Charter, they tingled and burned with the acrid stink of Free magic. 

Necromancy, at its core, was all Free magic. Abhorsen’s bells just tempered it with the Charter to make them safer to use. 

Keith ran his fingers over the cold curve of metal. He’d looked forward to the day that Krolia might give him bells of his own, or hand hers down to him. But he couldn’t wait to be ready anymore. The time had come to live up to his family’s legacy, and these bells had come to him. 

Keith whispered a string of Charter marks to the bell and watched the metal soak them up. They congealed atop the Free magic inside like drops of water in oil. Soon they were overcome by the dark morass. Keith tried again, with the same result. The Charter could master Free magic the same way a portrait could capture a face. There was power in describing a thing, in providing it a framework and a context, in giving it a name. He tried to teach Ranna its name. It stubbornly refused. 

When he returned it to the bandolier, he could feel the bell twitching in his fingers, the Free magic within it trying to ring out unbidden. 

\-----

The sun rose on a peaceful landscape. For the first time since they set out from Hunk’s village, there were no monsters on the horizon or Dead breathing down their necks. Only the rocky foothills leading up to the base of the Starmount peak. The ground was harder here, and the foliage even more sparse. Instead of picking their way over rippling flatlands, they would have to trudge up a steady incline. And it was cold. The wind carried the sting of altitude and the threat of snow. Without their bedrolls, the fire had done little to keep them warm. Everyone woke shivering. 

Allura tried once more to coax Shiro aboard the Paperwing, but he still insisted on walking. Especially now with Lotor as an unknown factor, he was unwilling to leave anyone behind. Allura took to the sky alone, and circled low overhead as the rest of the group picked their way up the slope. 

“You’re Abhorsen’s son, aren’t you?” she called down to Keith as he walked. “I’ve seen you at the glacier before.”

“I don’t remember you,” Keith admitted. He’d never been good at making friends even under the best circumstances, and to be honest he found most of the Clayr too haughty and ethereal to have a real conversation with. Not to mention how many of them there were to keep track of. There was only one Abhorsen, and only one Abhorsen-in-Waiting. There were a couple dozen Royals if you counted the lesser branches of their family tree. A few hundred Wallmakers scattered over the south of the kingdom. But there were thousands of Clayr, all packed into a city of catacombs inside the mountain. Keith couldn’t be expected to remember their names. 

Luckily, Allura seemed to agree. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “My Sight came late, so I was with the children until I was fifteen. They didn’t let us talk to important visitors. And I joined the Rangers soon after my Sight awoke, so I’m often not at the glacier at all.” 

“Weren’t you young for the Rangers?” said Keith. The Rangers were the Clayr’s security force that patrolled the mountains and the nearby river valley. The closest thing that the glacier had to a standing army. Keith had never heard of a fifteen-year-old being allowed to join. 

Allura smiled and whistled the Paperwing in a lazy loop around Keith’s head. “I’ve never been afraid of a fight,” she said. 

Keith got the impression that Allura was not a typical Clayr. He knew that Clayr children usually started seeing the future when they were younger than twelve, but that girls like Allura who were awakened later in life tended to be stronger seers. And she’d chosen a profession that took her outside the glacier, unlike so many Clayr who cloistered themselves away. She was a decent Charter mage, too, by the delicate way she was steering her Paperwing. Not a bad addition to their team. 

They stopped for a rest around midday. There was still no food, and their meager supper from the night before seemed like a lifetime ago. Allura sat on the prow of her parked Paperwing, watching them impatiently. Pidge and Hunk had taken Lance’s bow for some reason. Pidge was sinking some kind of enchantment into the wood while Hunk looked on and offered advice. Trust Pidge to find a project to work on, even out here. 

Shiro had lowered himself slowly into a sitting position, then quickly gave in to gravity and lay down on the smooth rocks as if he were about to go back to sleep. Keith didn’t begrudge him the rest, but something about the pinched expression on his face was worrying. 

Keith sat beside him and touched his wrist to get his attention. “You alright?” he said quietly. 

“Just tired,” Shiro muttered, his eyes still closed. 

“How’s your wound?” Keith could see through the hole in Shiro’s armor. There was no fresh blood, so it had stayed closed despite their marching. But the skin underneath was dark and splotchy with bruises. 

“Sore,” Shiro admitted. But half an hour later he got up and kept marching without a complaint, which Keith tried to look on as a sign that he was fine after all. 

They were making good time. Keith could see where the Ratterlin snaked up between the mountains. He couldn’t yet pick out the bridges that zig-zagged across the river on the path up to the glacier’s main entrance, but he knew where they were. They might reach them by nightfall, if they picked up the pace. After that, they would be safe. The Clayr’s wards extended down onto their bridges, and the running water would turn any but the very strongest of Dead. Keith fixed his eyes on the glacier and pressed forward. 

Shiro kept up at first, sweat beading on his face despite the cold. The weak sunlight filtered through the gray mountain clouds made all the colors a little wan, but Shiro looked especially pale. His hand hovered near the hole in his armor. After a few hours, he began to fall behind. 

Keith slowed to match his pace. “Let me take a look,” he said. 

Shiro shook his head. “Do it tonight, when we stop,” he replied. “I don’t want to hold everyone up.” 

Before the sun had even set, fog settled over the foothills and the nearby river valley. The glacier disappeared in the haze, and Keith could no longer see the path up the mountain that he had been aiming for all day. They hiked another mile or so northward, but the lack of visibility was frustrating and the moisture in the air was making everyone miserable. They made another sad, barren camp. Hopefully this was the last night they would all have to spend out here in the cold. 

Shiro looked worse, even compared to a few hours ago. He almost collapsed as he sat down. His back was hunched, his skin feverish. 

Keith helped Shiro out of his armor, undoing the buckles that were easier to manage with two hands. The brigandine came off along with the layer of padding underneath it. Dried blood flaked off the fabric as Keith pulled it over his head. Only a thin shirt remained. Shiro shivered. Keith brushed his fingers against the back of his neck and released a Charter mark for warmth. 

When he lifted up Shiro’s shirt and got a look at his side where the wound had been, he gasped and cursed loud enough to get the others’ attention. What Keith had thought was a bruise had spread halfway up Shiro’s ribcage and down past his hip. The purple and black patches squirmed under his skin, unlike any natural injury. Keith touched it and immediately felt the hot sting of Free magic radiating onto his hand. 

The original wound was healed, but the Mordicant had left a poisonous corruption behind, and it was tearing Shiro up from the inside out. 

“You should have said something,” Keith admonished him. 

“I didn’t know,” said Shiro, looking down alarmed at his own body. “It doesn’t hurt that bad.” Keith could see from his face that at least that last bit was a lie. 

Hunk knew some simple Charter marks for healing and curing infection, and Allura had some training as a field medic. Keith was better at battle magic than complex healing spells, but he knew the basics. They pooled their power to draw the swirling darkness out. But without the protection of a blessing to ward it off, the corruption had twisted itself deep into Shiro’s body and it hunkered there like a snake in a hole. At the first touch of the Charter it dove deeper inside, looking for refuge from the light of their magic and making Shiro gasp in pain. Keith drew away rather than keep chasing it around Shiro’s body. They didn’t have the expertise to draw it out without killing him. 

“It’s made of Free magic,” Pidge observed once they’d given up. “Keith, you can do Free magic. Can’t you interact with it directly instead of just trying to scoop it out?” 

Pidge made it sound so easy. But Free magic had never come as naturally to Keith as the Charter had, even as a little boy. Then he’d met Shiro, and the Charter had been something they could share. He’d lost all motivation to study the darker and more chaotic arts. Besides, the two forms of magic were not simply different keys to be tried in lock of this problem. Free magic was dangerous in ways Pidge didn’t understand. 

Then he looked at Shiro, weak and sick, lying on the ground. “I can try,” he said. 

His hands instinctively reached out for the warmth and comfort of the Charter. He had to focus to tap into the jarring, noisy chaos that existed outside the Charter’s walls. His stomach turned as he called it to him, making the air around his hands ripple with uncontained power and giving off a stench like boiling vinegar and burning hair. 

The others scooted away from him and watched from the other side of the fire. Shiro didn’t move, though his eyes widened and his eyebrows furrowed with concern. It wasn’t until he reached up to put his hand on Keith’s shoulder with a whispered, “Careful,” that Keith realized the concern was not for himself. 

Pidge had been right. With Charter magic he’d uselessly tried to corral the poison under Shiro’s skin. With Free magic, he could pit his strength against it. Unfamiliar words sprang from his mouth and filled it with a hot, metallic taste. His hands were hot, too. Just the warmth of power at first, but it quickened to a tingling, unpleasant burn. 

The bruise on Shiro’s body quivered and condensed. It peeled itself off his ribs and away from his belly, shrinking down to the size of a clenched fist. Shiro’s face instantly showed relief as it loosened its hold on him. Keith held it contained there, though it felt like he was pressing his hands against a lit stove. But when he tried to pull it out, blisters rose on his skin and smoke started to curl from under his fingernails. 

He wasn’t strong enough. He barely managed to disentangle himself from the spell before letting go of it, so that it didn’t backfire in his face. The black poison sank back under Shiro’s skin and spread itself out again. They fell away from each other, the air between them crackling with the remnants of Keith’s failed spell, as if the void itself were laughing at him. 

He turned toward the others. Allura was still on the other side of the fire, eyeing him suspiciously. As a Clayr, she would have been taught to fear Free magic above all else. Lance was beside her. For once in his life he seemed speechless. For all his teasing about Keith’s spookiness, he’d never seen him in action like this. 

Pidge and Hunk were already back at Keith’s side. “Rats,” said Pidge when she saw Shiro looking no better. “Well, it was worth a shot.” 

“If that didn’t work, then how do we get rid of it?” Hunk worried. 

Keith only knew one way for sure. The poison in Shiro wasn’t a Free magic entity in itself. It was a piece of corruption chipped off of a more powerful spell. The Mordicant. Its power was tied directly to the monster that had put it there. Kill the Mordicant, and this piece would die too. 

But they’d tried that already, and Keith didn’t know if they’d be lucky enough to escape a second time. 

“The Clayr have healers,” said Allura. “They’ll be able to help him at the glacier.” 

Keith turned to Shiro and said, “You’re getting on that Paperwing,” in a tone that did not invite discussion. 

“Too late now,” said Shiro, indicating the dark and hazy sky above them. Even if it hadn’t been nighttime, which the Paperwing hated, the fog would have made it too dangerous to fly. 

“First thing in the morning, then,” said Keith.

Shiro must have been feeling worse than he let on, because he didn’t push back. “Okay,” he said. “First thing in the morning.”


	13. Keith, at Naxzela

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this is the last chapter of me beating the shit out of Shiro for a while. I'll give the man a break. 
> 
> No update next Friday, I need to get through the holidays and build my buffer back up.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Keith startled awake. The campfire was still roaring nearby, but its warmth hadn’t stopped the wind from freezing his limbs stiff after a night of lying on the cold earth. The fog had left a clammy sheen over his hair and clothes. The early light of morning was starting to burn the mist away, and Keith could see the dawn sparkling on the glacier above them. 

He wasn’t sure what had woken him so suddenly until he heard it again. A loud _thunk_ like the chopping of wood, and the crackle of a fire that did not come from Pidge’s candle. Only then did he hear the shouting, more voices joining in as his friends woke up one by one. 

The Paperwing was burning. Two huge arrows the size of javelins were embedded in its side, each wrapped in oil-soaked cloth. The fire they’d brought with them was consuming the paper craft. Allura jumped up with a scream and tried to contain it, but the fire was spreading too quickly. It roared above her head, licking her hair even as she laid Charter magic on the unburned portion of the Paperwing to try to save it. 

It was Lance who pulled her away. The ends of her hair and the edges of her robe were smoking as they retreated from the bonfire. The part of the Paperwing nearest the center of the blaze was already falling apart into ash. As soon as Allura’s protection fell away from it, the rest soon followed. 

Keith didn’t bother with the Paperwing. It had been beyond saving even before he’d opened his eyes. Instead, Keith peered down the hill through the remnants of the morning fog, trying to see where the attack had come from. 

What he saw froze his blood. No more than two miles down the slope, shapes were appearing out of the mist. Man-sized shambling figures in a swarm. And in the center of the pack, a huge shape made of earth and fire, holding a weapon taller than itself. The Mordicant and its Hands. It had caught them. 

The Mordicant raised its weapon. Keith squinted into the fog. It looked like an elaborate, curved staff the size of a small tree. The Mordicant held it in the middle of its length, straight up and down, and angled upward toward their camp. It wasn’t until it drew its other arm back that Keith recognized the pose of an archer lining up a shot. The staff was a gargantuan bow, and a third arrow caught fire as the Mordicant loosed it up the hill. 

“Get down!” Keith yelled. Pidge jumped in front of Hunk and spread her hands, Charter marks for deflection and resistance crackling on her fingertips. Lance had already dragged Allura behind the wreckage of the Paperwing for cover. 

Shiro’s hand grabbed Keith’s wrist and pulled him to the ground, and the arrow passed through the air where his head had been a moment before. Keith barely noticed the near miss. Shiro’s palm was burning where it touched him. His face was ashen, and he was shaking with the effort it took to hold himself propped up on his elbow. As soon as he saw that Keith was unharmed, he collapsed back to the ground. Keith could see the purplish bruise of the Mordicant’s poison on Shiro’s neck above the collar of his armor. 

Of course. That was why Shiro had been getting worse. The source of his illness had been getting closer. The Mordicant, which would have usually shunned the light, had done a forced march around the clock to catch them. Keith looked again. Sure enough, the Hands had eroded down to chunks of flesh clinging to sinew and bone, and the Mordicant itself was cracked and peeling as its outer shell took the brunt of the damage from the sun. But they were here, and intact enough to fight. 

The Mordicant put down its bow and drove its army of Hands up the hill toward its prey. 

“Shiro!” Keith pleaded. The Paperwing was gone. The Dead were upon them. But they were so close, just a handful of miles away, and the sun was in the sky. Maybe the Dead would be just slow enough. Maybe they could just make it to the Clayr’s wards. “We have to run!”

Shiro parted his chapped lips and tried to say something. Hardly any sound came out. Keith had to lean close to hear him say, “I can’t.” 

He’d already given up. Keith fought the urge to shake him. “I can still save you!” he shouted. 

Even quieter now, Shiro rasped, “You tried.” 

The Dead were marching up the hill. The Mordicant, a mountain of cursed flesh. Its Hands, an army of grabbing fingers and gnashing teeth swarming at its feet. Too many. Keith thought of the Dead he had fought alongside his mother, and weighed the numbers before him against his own strength. It would be a fearsome fight. They might not win. And even if they did, not all of them would survive. 

Lance was at Keith’s side, sighting an arrow. Keith almost told him that the Dead were too far off for that, but when Lance loosed it the arrow actually flew over the Mordicant’s head and landed in the dirt behind the approaching army. Lance tried again. This time the wind caught the arrow and it went wide. So Pidge had managed to make his bow shoot farther, but hadn’t accounted for accuracy. Undeterred, Lance lined up another shot. 

“We can take them,” said Lance with the confidence of inexperience. 

“No,” said Keith, still kneeling by Shiro’s side. “We have to make it to the glacier.”

Lance fired another arrow, and this one struck a glancing blow against one of the Hands. As the arrowhead bit into its hip, the last of the sinew holding its leg in place tore away and it crashed to the ground. “Then you run,” he said. “I’ll hold them off.” He was stupid and irritating and, Keith was beginning to see, genuinely brave. But if he faced the Dead here, he would fall, and all his misguided pride would die with him before it had a chance to mature into nobility. 

“I won’t let these monsters near my home!” said Allura, stepping up beside Lance. She released the fastening on her belt and uncoiled it with a flick of her wrist, revealing it to be a braided whip. It snapped in the air as she readied it to fight. She was fierce, poised, and talented. Awakened late, with the potential to be one of the greatest Clayr of her generation. And she would die here in a futile fight, at the hands of the Dead. 

“Protect the Prince!” said Hunk, joining the line. He spun Charter marks in his hands. Simple marks for destruction and unmaking, the same few over and over again, but built to great power until each of his hands held a magical bomb. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. He was the gentlest soul Keith had ever known, and Keith had stolen him to turn him into a weapon. He would die, too, along with all of his sweetness and kindness. 

Pidge was there. In one hand she held her dagger. In the other, a little green candle. When she blew on it, the wax liquefied in an instant and splashed up her arm only to harden into metal just as quickly. It became an intricate bracer with a triangular bladed grappling hook resting on the back of her hand. Charter marks made its surface glow. If she died, her bright spirit and lightning-fast mind would be snuffed out, all her innovation and inquisitiveness drowned in Death’s river. 

The Dead marched closer. The corruption inched up Shiro’s neck. His head dropped back and he closed his eyes. 

“We have a chance this time,” said Pidge, “now that Keith has the bells instead of it!” 

Keith didn’t have the words or time to explain to her that the bells he wore did not answer to him. They were waiting to betray him, to go back to their true master. He couldn’t use them. Any of them. 

Except for one. Astarael didn’t have a master. She didn’t care whether she was singing Free or Charter magic. She couldn’t ring false and she didn’t play tricks. All Keith had to do was set her free. 

Only one person had to die today. 

“Hunk,” said Keith, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I have a plan.”

“What is it?”

“No time. You’ll just have to trust me,” he said. “Don’t let any of them follow me. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Hunk, still not comprehending. Hopefully he wouldn’t figure it out until Keith was a safe distance away. 

Keith knelt beside Shiro again. His eyelids were fluttering, his breathing harsh and ragged. When Keith held his face in his hands, Shiro opened his eyes and struggled to focus them. Keith committed to memory the color of his eyes, the curve of his nose, the shape of his chin, the fall of his hair. This memory of the face he loved best would carry him happily through Death. If Keith could take the Mordicant with him, then Shiro would survive. It would be worth it. Without a doubt, it would be worth it. 

Shiro knew him too well. His forehead creased with a worry that had nothing to do with the pain of the curse in his blood. “Keith?” he tried to say. 

He almost took his fleeting, final chance to kiss him. But it was too sudden, too unfair. Instead he rested his cheek against Shiro’s, breathing in the smell of his hair. 

“I love you,” was what he meant to whisper in his ear. 

But he didn’t even have the resolve for that. Instead, he said again, “I can still save you.” And when he pulled away, Shiro’s eyes followed him in confusion and horror. 

Keith turned toward the downward slope. Just as he started to run, he heard Shiro’s choked and hoarse voice call out from behind him, “Don’t let him go!” Keith almost let it stop him. But then he ran, flying back down the hill he’d fought to climb, skipping and soaring down into the waiting arms of the Dead. 

As he ran, he loosened the largest clasp on his bandolier. He had never opened Astarael’s bindings before, nor held her in his hand. There was no reason to. Unlike the other bells, she was impossible to practice and she required no skill. She only did one thing. 

Astarael would cast all who heard it deep into Death. Keith had heard of particularly strong necromancers listening to her song, ending up in the eighth or ninth Precinct, and walking back to Life. But it was rare. Many necromancers had rung Astarael in desperation, hoping for such an outcome, only to face a final death beyond the Ninth Gate. Keith knew better than to hope for a miracle. 

He was at least a mile down the hill when he met the Dead. Plenty far enough that the others would be safe. The Dead approached him cautiously. The Hands fanned out around him, encircling him, as the Mordicant bore down on him. Its shadow swallowed Keith as it put its back to the rising sun. It was somehow even more terrible than before, with its inner fire pulsing under its thinned hide and its form eroded by the sunlight until it barely looked humanoid anymore. Its mouth cracked open, flames licking blackened teeth, and Keith couldn’t tell if it was growling or laughing. 

It thought it had him. 

But he had it. 

“I won’t let you take him,” he said. And even then, the Mordicant could not see what he was about to do. 

Keith drew Astarael, the metal heavy in his hand. The Mordicant recoiled as it finally understood, but it was too late to escape. As Keith raised his arm to swing the bell, he closed his eyes. 

And then he let his arm start to fall. 

A surge of power in front of him and a blast of heat on his face made him open his eyes again. The Mordicant was staggering under a barrage of explosions, each one carving a bleeding hollow into its blighted flesh. It roared and screamed as it tried to escape the attack. The Hands were momentarily directionless, staring dumbly. 

Astarael was in Keith’s hand, in the air, falling. Its clapper hung between its walls by gravity’s thread. Keith reached into the bell and grabbed the clapper mid-swing. Even the slight knocking of his knuckles against the metal produced a dull sound that made his spirit jitter inside his body as it tried to jump the veil into Death. He fell to one knee, suddenly breathless and covered in a cold sweat as it hit him how close he had just come to ending his own life.

He looked to the west, where the attack that had saved him had come from. Lotor was standing on the rise, illuminated by the morning sun so that his hair seemed to glow. There was smoke coming off his outstretched hand from where he’d released his attack. Free magic made the air around him shimmer. 

“Keep the Hands busy!” Lotor shouted as he sprinted to close the distance, frighteningly fast. “Leave Zarkon to me!” 

With their master wounded, the Hands were sluggish. But they still had enough sense to move on an easy target. They descended on Keith like a wave. He managed to replace Astarael safely in her holster just in time to draw his sword. 

Even with Charter-spelled steel in his hand, the Dead almost overpowered him. Their sheer numbers threatened to swarm through his defense and push him to the ground. But the shock of being alive when he expected to be dead had charged his limbs with manic strength. He shoved his way back to his feet and cut down two Hands with a single swing. 

While the Hands converged on Keith, Lotor cut his way through the thinnest part of their ranks to get to the Mordicant in the center. It had recovered from his initial attack, and it turned to meet him with a roar. Lotor leaped. The Mordicant swung at him with a fist the size of his torso. 

But Keith couldn’t watch the fight. He was busy defending himself against the onslaught of Hands. They were so thick around him that he didn’t even need to aim. Wherever he swung his sword, wherever he blasted Charter magic, there was a Dead body to absorb the blow and another behind it to take its place. When a Hand grabbed him from the left, there was another to his right preventing his escape. He tried to cut his way to the edge of the crowd, to fall back and regroup, but he couldn’t even see which was the shortest way to freedom. Everywhere he looked, there was another rotten face upturned and gnashing its broken teeth. 

They were clawing at his arms and legs, teeth scraping his armor, searching for his flesh, pulling him in every direction. He was swinging his sword with his wrist, unable to move his arm enough to make a proper arc. The weight of the bodies hanging on him was dragging him down. Down to the ground where he would be an easy meal for the horde. 

Just as his knees started to buckle, the Hands’ grips loosened and they seemed to slow and sag. Keith shook off their grips and reeled away from them. Finally, he was free to look to the Mordicant. 

Lotor had closed the distance. He stood astride the Mordicant’s shoulders. The Mordicant stood still, as weak and slack-limbed as its Hands around it. Keith couldn’t understand how Lotor had stopped it without so much as a weapon in his hands. 

But then he felt it. The nauseating push of Free magic. But this was different from the background noise of the spells reanimating the Dead all around him. It was louder, more purposeful, intricate even in its brute strength. It was coming from Lotor. 

Lotor’s magic reached into the Mordicant, past the flesh and into the inner workings, and merged with the spell that bound its soul to its body. The Mordicant was made of old magic, as solid as an oak door. Using the Charter, if he’d had the strength, Keith might have tried to inelegantly hack it apart or burn it down. But Lotor weaved Free magic onto Free magic. He was water dripping onto wood, seeping into the grain to weaken and soften it, only to freeze to ice in an instant and burst it apart. 

Keith couldn’t have done it. Krolia couldn’t have done it. Lotor stood against the morning sky with the Mordicant’s spirit unraveling in his hands. He was not just a sorcerer, but someone who had been raised in Free magic, who spoke it as a first language. He breathed it. 

The Mordicant’s fire went out. Its body fell apart in wet chunks and slapped to the ground in a putrid pile. One by one, the Hands fell, too. Their bindings were broken with their master. Their bodies crumpled as their souls splashed back into Death. 

Lotor jumped clear of the Mordicant’s remains and landed near Keith. The sear of Free magic still spiked the air around him. He swept his long hair out of his face with a satisfied sigh. 

“There,” he said. “ _Now_ can we talk?”


	14. Keith, arriving

“The necromancer’s name is Haggar,” Lotor told them as they sat in the ruins of their camp, warmed only by the thin morning sun and the smoldering wreckage of the Clayr’s Paperwing. “She is my mother.” 

That would have been enough for Keith to disregard anything else he had to say. But when he leaned forward to reply, Shiro stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “We said we’d hear him out,” Shiro reminded him. 

It was the first time Shiro had spoken to him directly since he’d trudged out of the battlefield littered with defeated Dead and back up the hill to the rest of the group, Lotor following close beside him. Hunk had met him halfway up with a weepy hug that almost knocked them both down. As soon as Hunk had let go of him, Pidge had been there to give him several punches on his sore left arm before throwing her arms around his midsection and giving him a squeeze. 

And right behind them had been Shiro: upright, all traces of Free magic gone from his skin, face flushed not from fever but from his breakneck run down the hill. All the tension from the fight and from Lotor’s ominous presence had melted out of Keith at the sight of him. 

Shiro had stopped ten feet up the hill from Keith, and even when Pidge was done hugging him, he hadn’t closed the gap. He’d stood there with chest heaving and eyes wide. They’d locked eyes for what had felt like an eternity. But instead of speaking to him, Shiro had turned away and addressed Lotor instead. 

Now, Shiro’s hand on his shoulder and his voice in his ear made the back of Keith’s head tingle from the attention. But as soon as Keith closed his mouth and settled back down, Shiro pulled his hand away. 

That was fine. Shiro could be angry with him, as long as he was alive. 

Lotor continued, “I don’t know how long she has lived in the wastelands between the Old Kingdom and Estwael. At least my entire life. She and my father sought to plumb the depths of Death’s secrets together. They succumbed to their ambitions when I was young. Their lives were forfeit to the forbidden power they craved. But, as you know, death is not the end for necromancers such as they.”

Cold creeped up Keith’s spine as he recalled certain passages from the Book in his mother’s library. Necromancers who cheated death became the worst kinds of monsters. Krolia had never had to face one of the Greater Dead since she had started training Keith. She’d once told him that she hoped they would never need to in either of their lifetimes. It seemed that hope was now no longer possible. 

“So, they were among the Dead. But that didn’t stop them. Their research into Death corroded their souls in ways that their magic could not repair. Eventually, Zarkon delved too deep. His body destroyed, his humanity gone, the only use his soul had left was to power a Mordicant. Haggar was more careful. She hoarded her secrets, but she preserved herself from the ravages of the river. Her mind is still as sharp as the day she died.

“Meanwhile, I was raised by books and by Dead Hands. My parents had little time for me, and when Haggar deigned to show me attention it was to school me in the ways of Free magic. Any motherly affection she might have held toward me was subsumed by the rot in her soul. It was a lonely, painful existence. I tried to escape many times, but a child was no match for her machinations. I only managed to get away when she was distracted by a prize valuable enough to draw her attention from me: a Royal of Belisaere.” And here Lotor paused and studied Shiro with narrow eyes. “Your highness, I have grown up seeing what she does to her captives. I do not envy you the last two years.”

Shiro looked away from Lotor’s unblinking stare. Keith shifted so that Lotor was forced to look at him, instead. “And what about your last two years?” he said. “You knew all this, you knew she had Shiro. But you did nothing?” 

“What could I have done?” said Lotor, gesturing to the ugly mark on his forehead. “I have spent the last two years merely surviving. I am a Free magic sorcerer. Not by choice, but by birth. I couldn’t have gone within ten miles of Belisaere without being discovered and killed. The Clayr are distrustful even among men with Charter blessings, which I do not have. The Wallmakers serve the crown. I’ve even had to avoid towns and villages in case they contained a mage perceptive enough to sense my mother’s stain on me.” 

“You could have petitioned the Abhorsen,” said Keith. “It’s our job to stop people like Haggar.” 

Lotor laughed out loud. “Your mother represents a greater danger to me than the Royals, the Clayr, and the Wallmakers combined,” he said. “Even you wanted to kill me when you first met me. I believe you still might.”

“No one’s going to kill you,” said Hunk.

Lance winced and added a noncommittal, “Ehhhhhh…” 

“What were they looking for?” Pidge cut in before they could put Lotor’s murder to a vote. “You said Haggar and Zarkon were researching Free magic and exploring Death. But to what end? What did they want?”

Lotor spread his hands. “Power?” he guessed. “Destruction? Knowledge for its own sake? I don’t doubt that Haggar has ulterior motives, but she was careful never to let them slip to me. Whatever her plans, they can only be dangerous for the rest of the Kingdom.” 

Allura was next with a challenge. “You say Haggar has been among the Greater Dead since you were small, but you’re our age. That would mean she’s been out there, undetected by the Clayr’s Sight and by the Abhorsen’s vigilance, for nearly twenty years.” 

“Longer than that,” Lotor confirmed. “She may not have been Dead yet, but she was surely walking in Death long before my birth.” 

“That’s impossible,” Allura snapped. “We would have known.” 

“Would you? The Clayr rely too much on their Sight. And Abhorsen is only as good as the information that is offered her. Haggar has been building her power quietly, avoiding the noisy pitfalls of amateur necromancers. She has let bandits, animals, and the treacherous terrain take credit for her violence. Think of how the borderlands have grown in notoriety over the years. Within that chaotic reputation, she – the source – has remained safely obscured.” 

Lotor surveyed the faces turned suspiciously toward him. No more questions were forthcoming, and no one seemed to want to be the first to pass judgement. 

“I have taken an incredible risk in approaching you,” Lotor reminded them. “If I cared only for my own safety, I would have fled to Ancelstierre. If I wanted power, I would have remained under Haggar’s tutelage. Please believe that my dearest wish is a true peace for the Old Kingdom.” 

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Pidge spoke up first. “It sounds like we have the same goal. Maybe we can work together.” 

“Pidge!” said Lance, disbelieving. 

Pidge rounded on Lance. “I just want to find out what happened to my dad! All we’ve been doing so far is running around, trying not to die! Lotor just gave us our first real win. I’m willing to keep using his information as long as it gets us closer to Haggar.” 

“We’re about to go to the Clayr’s glacier,” Lance reminded her. “They don’t let Free magic sorcerers in there. He’s on his own.” 

Lotor said, “Now that I’ve shown my hand, Haggar is surely aware of my presence. If you leave me out here, I will soon be dead.”

Lance didn’t look concerned. “I can speed up that process for you, if you like.” 

“Wait a minute,” said Hunk. “Lotor didn’t ask for this. The Clayr’s protection should be for him, too.” 

Keith was the only one who had seen Lotor’s power up close. It might be an incredible asset, but it could just as easily be a deadly threat. He couldn’t let that threat in through the Clayr’s front door. He couldn’t let it stay near Shiro. “Too risky,” he said. “We don’t know him. We can’t trust him.” 

Lotor’s eyes burned the side of Keith’s head until he turned to look at him. “I didn’t choose this path,” said Lotor, using the Abhorsen’s own mantra against him. 

“And I didn’t choose mine,” said Keith, unmoved. “But I’m walking it. I’m an Abhorsen. My first duty is the safety of the kingdom. I can’t put you above that.” 

Lotor sneered, a crack showing in his unconcerned façade. “No, not me. But there are those you would put above your duty, aren’t there? The Prince, for instance. You give him your allegiance and your trust, but Haggar had him for years. Her mark is on him just as indelibly as it is on me.” 

Keith couldn’t stop his lip from curling into a snarl. He wanted to answer with his fists, but instead he just said, “You’re wrong. I would be able to tell.” 

“Are you sure? You may be a prodigious Charter mage,” Lotor went on, heedless of Keith’s anger, “but you’re a novice when it comes to Free magic. Haggar could be holding influence over him in ways you don’t even know exist. You can’t begin to understand how powerful she is if you’ve never faced her.” 

“I’ve faced her. She ambushed me in Death. I know her power, which is why I’m not interested in inviting her son into one of the strongholds of the great bloodlines.” 

That made Lotor pause. His face changed. “You met her in Death…” he said thoughtfully. “Then you could easily be under her thrall, as well.” 

Keith didn’t like agreeing with Lance, but killing Lotor was starting to look like an attractive option. 

Allura sat, staring at her lap and kneading her hands together as she measured her words. She finally spoke up to cut the rising tension. “We Clayr are very protective of our glacier. My ancestors have taken great pains to keep its halls secure, and I myself have devoted my life to guarding its surroundings and entrances. Our laws, though strict, are designed to keep us safe. To allow a Free magic sorcerer to walk through its doors goes against everything I’ve ever been taught.

“However, Lotor has vanquished a formidable enemy right outside my home. His actions so far have been honorable and trustworthy. And if he is telling the truth, then he may be the key to opening our Sight to Haggar and ending this conflict.” Her eyes flicked to Keith, and she went on, “Abhorsen is proof that Free magic alone is not a threat, only the evil intent behind it. Lotor has not acted with evil intent.”

“So…” said Hunk, “you agree with me and Pidge? He should stay with us?” 

Allura stopped fidgeting and folded her hands. “I am conflicted,” she admitted. Then she looked to Shiro. “I respect the crown, and Shiro understands the dangers better than any of us. I’ll abide by his decision.” 

Shiro had stayed quiet through the entire exchange. He sat with his hand on his knee. His eyes were closed and his shoulders tense. Keith knew how hard this decision would be for him. Shiro was a compassionate man, and his instincts were never to abandon someone asking for help. But in the end, he had to see that Keith was right. Lotor was too dangerous to keep around.

“Lotor comes with us,” said Shiro. 

“ _What?!_ ” Keith blurted out.

Shiro’s eyes snapped open and he narrowed them in Keith’s direction. “He comes with us,” he said again, and offered no explanation. 

Allura waited to make sure Shiro was final in his answer, then sighed and said, “Then I will vouch for him to enter the glacier, though it troubles me greatly to do so.” 

Keith protested, but he was clearly outnumbered and Shiro only met his arguments with silence. They packed what few supplies they had and began the final stretch of their hike up the mountain. Lotor was quiet, perhaps not wanting to push his luck with so narrow a margin of victory. Keith lagged behind the group, the better to keep an eye on him. 

When they reached the Ratterlin, the rocky trail giving way to the Clayr’s delicate bridges and finished paths, Keith allowed himself to relax by a fraction. Here was where the wildlands ended and the Clayr’s protection began. Haggar’s monsters couldn’t touch them anymore. As Keith stepped onto the first bridge, he brushed a finger against the post. Charter marks glowed on the stone. They reached out to him, testing him, and then fell dormant again when they recognized the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. He was allowed to pass. 

He ran his hand along the guard rail as he went. Spells were laid on top of spells here – ancient alarms, battle-sendings, barriers, and traps. Like the wards on Abhorsen’s House, Keith could read the work of generations in this magic. It lay over the whole mountain like an impenetrable shield, making it one of the safest places in the entire kingdom. 

The wards ignored Hunk and Lance. A few of them glittered green as Pidge’s feet tapped them – the traces of the ancient Wallmakers who’d helped built this place recognized their daughter. Others glowed at Shiro’s approach, and did not subside until long after he’d passed. 

When Lotor stepped onto the bridge, Charter marks all around him snapped and hummed angrily. They formed a web of light around him that seemed about to rise into the air to ensnare him. Allura quieted the spell with a touch of her hand, and the marks faded back into the stone. Keith thought he could feel the Charter seething as Lotor walked over the wards that wanted his blood, but Allura’s hand on his elbow kept the danger at bay. 

Back and forth across the river they went, until the paving stones ended at the base of a steep rock wall. The final ascent to the entrance was a series of switchback staircases carved into the mountainside. 

Halfway up, Keith stopped at one of the landings and let the others pass him by. He hadn’t had a moment of privacy in days, and he needed to think. The valley sloped away from him to the south, rocks giving way to grass giving way to distant trees. The day was not clear enough to see all the way to Belisaere, but it was there to Keith’s left where the land met the sea. And in the other direction, the borderlands. They’d risked their lives to get here, but now what? Threats besieged them from every side. He’d made an enemy of a queen and of a powerful witch, and he couldn’t hide in the glacier forever.

The sound of footfalls on stone made Keith snap out of his reverie. The others had continued up, and were still climbing two or three levels above. But Shiro had turned around, and was coming back down the stairs toward him. “Stay where I can see you,” he said. 

Keith answered the flatness in Shiro’s voice with a petulant, “Yes, your highness.” 

Shiro sighed, tried to cross his arms before realizing that he couldn’t, and so ran his hand through his hair instead. He continued down to the landing and leaned against the railing next to Keith. Perhaps sensing that Keith was coiled for an argument, he stayed silent. 

Keith was not so patient. He held out for less than a minute before breaking the silence. “Letting Lotor into the glacier is a mistake.” 

“Maybe,” Shiro admitted. 

“We know nothing about him! Everything he said might have been a lie!” 

“You’re right,” said Shiro, dancing around the conversation like footwork in a sparring match. Keith was coming at him hard, so he gave ground knowing he could parry later. “But we can’t leave him out here to die.” 

Keith sighed through his teeth, almost a growl. “We can’t trust him.”

Shiro closed his eyes. His hand tightened on the railing as he fought to stay calm. “I _don’t_ trust him.” 

“Then why are you siding with him?”

“I owe him.”

Keith almost laughed at such a ridiculous notion. “For what?!” he demanded. 

“For _you!_ ” Shiro shouted, his fury finally escaping his control as he rounded on Keith. “If it weren’t for Lotor, you’d be dead. Or were we just not going to talk about that?”

Keith took an unthinking step back and leaned on the railing. He’d told himself before that it was fine if Shiro was angry with him, but now, faced with that anger, he faltered. “That’s the job,” he stammered, trying to keep his face impassive though his heart was aching. “If there’s a threat from the Dead, Abhorsen is supposed to lay down his life for the kingdom. For his King.” 

“That’s not fair, Keith. Don’t try to hide behind duty with me. You’re not Abhorsen, and I’m not the King!”

Any possible response stuck in Keith’s throat. When he didn’t reply, Shiro reached across and touched his shoulder. This time, the anger had burned out of his voice and left only sadness. 

“We’re friends,” Shiro begged. “Before our ranks, our titles, our bloodlines. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“We’re more than that. You’re my…” Keith couldn’t bring himself to say the word “brother,” so he just let the sentence trail off.

Shiro’s hand shifted so that his thumb slipped over the hem of Keith’s collar and rested on his clavicle. “Then tell me the truth.”

And so he did. “I’ve lived in a world where you were dead,” said Keith. “I’d rather die than go back there.”

Shiro slumped like the wind had been knocked out of him, and his hand rose again so that his fingers dug into the back of Keith’s neck. “I remember, you know,” he said, his voice quiet now. “The last two years. Bits and pieces, but it’s coming back to me. Death would have been easy. I had to decide, every day, to survive. My life’s not worth much, but I fought for it. But you. You’re worth _everything_ , and you were going to throw your life away!” 

Keith wanted to respond, but Shiro’s hand was still sliding up his neck, fingers in his hair, thumb on his cheekbone. He held Keith’s face in his hand so that he couldn’t look away. He had to know what it was doing to Keith to be held like that, didn’t he? 

“You think dying for me will save me? It was the thought of you, alive, that saved me! I fought for you. I survived for you. I came back for _you_!”

Keith grabbed him and kissed him. 

He did it before he could think about it, and then there they were. Hands on each other’s faces, mouths pressed artlessly together. Keith didn’t dare move. In case this was the one and only time this could happen, he didn’t want it to be over too soon. But his nose was mashed against Shiro’s cheek, and finally he had to pull away to breathe. Even then, he kept his eyes screwed shut as if he could make the moment last longer if he just didn’t look at the surprise and pity that were surely on Shiro’s face. 

But when he did look, Shiro’s eyes were still closed and his face was softer than Keith had ever seen it. Keith breathed out, and Shiro leaned forward, following his breath to his mouth to kiss him back. 

He didn’t know where he was, then. The mountain air wasn’t cold anymore. He could barely feel the stone beneath his feet. All he knew was that Shiro’s tongue was in his mouth, he was gripping two handfuls of Shiro’s hair, Shiro’s arm was around his waist and pulling him close. Hard leather dug into his chest. He yanked on his bandolier so that the bells spun around to fall across his back. That let them get closer – their bodies flush from chests to stomachs to hips. Keith kissed him deeper, hard enough to hurt, each taste making him hungrier until it wouldn’t have been enough even if he could have crawled inside Shiro’s armor with him. 

That morning seemed so long ago, now. A second, half a second, less, had separated him from Astarael’s song. He’d almost let death steal this moment from him. Shiro moaned softly against his mouth, and it made him never want to touch that seventh bell ever again. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith whispered as they clung to each other, their panting making white clouds in the mountain air, too out of breath to kiss anymore but not yet willing to let go. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Shiro replied. “Just be safe.” 

They disentangled their bodies and ascended the rest of the stairs to enter the halls of the Clayr hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I’m so glad I finally got to make them smooch. Okay, this is a pretty good pause point. I’m going to take some time off from updating. Now that they’re at the glacier the next section is not as linear so I have some planning to do about the timeline and viewpoints. I want to get the next three or four chapters written and edited before I start posting to avoid writing myself into a corner. Thanks for reading! This is my pet project and it’s so incredibly rewarding to see that it’s struck a chord with other people, too. I love everyone in this bar.
> 
> EDIT 1/8/19: Big thanks to Kei ([@keirogane on twitter](https://twitter.com/keirogane)) for doing such an amazing job with the art I commissioned for this chapter. Be sure to follow them for some beautiful Sheith art!


	15. Keith, among the Clayr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I didn't get as much written ahead as I'd hoped and I picked up a couple of events and new fics, so I might not be able to keep up with a weekly update. But I have a plan and I'll keep the chapters coming as quickly as I'm able!
> 
> Please click back to the previous chapter to check out some art I commissioned from [keirogane](https://twitter.com/keirogane). They were so nice, and drew me something really special for a moment that I had a lot of fun writing. If you enjoy this fic, please support their art!

The Clayr guarding the entrance of the glacier was a startlingly tall woman in heavy armor, with a magenta cast to her hair and a birthmark at the corner of her mouth. Her name was Hira. She was not happy about Lotor’s presence. 

Keith stood back with the rest of the group as Allura pled Lotor’s case. Even if Keith had been willing to speak up in Lotor’s defense, his word wouldn’t have held much weight. The Clayr kept their own counsel when it came to their home. They sometimes had to defer to the sovereign of the realm. Anyone less than that – a child Wallmaker, an exiled prince, an apprentice Abhorsen – had little chance of convincing them to bend their rules. 

So Allura took the lead, and gracefully kicked Lotor in the shin the one time he tried to interrupt her. The guards were reluctant to budge. The discussion soon was heated enough that it drew a small crowd of eavesdroppers. More Clayr from deeper in the mountain paused at the end of the corridor and watched he little drama unfold. 

“You don’t have the authority to refuse him entrance,” Allura finally snapped. “Not when he has information that might pertain to the safety of the kingdom!” 

Hira gave her a sour look. She glanced over her shoulder at the onlookers, then back at Allura’s determined face. “I’ll have to inform Melenor.”

“Of course,” Allura chirped back, unperturbed. “I expected to speak to my mother when I returned.” 

Hira sullenly led them into the glacier, the nosy bystanders scattering at their approach. 

The inside of the mountain was a warren of tunnels. They were expertly carved, beautifully decorated, and lit with Charter marks that glowed more like sunbeams than lantern light. Ancient builders had hewn the ceilings high, and the corridors regularly opened into galleries and halls. There were great sweeping spiral staircases and even a couple of fountains. The Clayr had done everything possible to keep visitors from missing windows and sunlight and open air. 

These tricks of the eye didn’t work on Keith. He never forgot that he was underground. This place was safe, but so is a tomb. 

Hira showed them to a nondescript office and told them to wait. Pidge and Hunk made themselves comfortable on a bench hewn out of the rock wall. Lance paced nervously. Before Hira left, she shoved Lotor into a chair and manacled his hands behind him. When he started to protest, she wove a string of Charter marks for silence onto his mouth. He glanced around the room to see if anyone would argue against such treatment. No one did, not even Allura. Lotor shrugged and tried to make himself comfortable despite his bonds. 

Stilling a mage’s hands and tongue was a good precaution. But Keith had a feeling such things wouldn’t amount to much more than an inconvenience for Lotor if he truly wished to cause trouble. As if sensing his mistrust, Lotor stared Keith down and slowly winked at him. 

Keith slid a chair against the wall and sat so that he had a view of the entire room. Shiro leaned on the wall beside him. When no one was looking, he slid his hand under Keith’s hair and squeezed the nape of his neck. Some of the tension dropped out of Keith’s shoulders. 

Keith hadn’t recognized Melenor’s name, but when she entered, he recognized her face. Those who were seated stood at her approach, save Lotor who was still attached to his chair. Even those who didn’t know her could sense the power of her presence. Melenor may not have had an official title. She was not head of the merchants, nor the bank, nor the builders. She was not Guard Captain nor Chief Engineer. And yet, every time Keith had visited the glacier growing up, the Clayr had shown deference to her. Nearly sixty years old, venerable but still sharp, and with a gift of Sight rivaled only by Clayr in the history books. The Clayr did not have a Queen, but if they did, it would have been Melenor. 

First, she embraced Allura. It was immediately evident that they were related. Allura was a younger double of her mother. “I Saw your troubles,” Melenor said. “As well as your safe return. But none of us Saw him.” She turned and gestured to Lotor. 

Lotor, unable to greet her or even wave hello, smiled and quirked his eyebrows. Melenor answered him with a frown. 

They told Melenor the story from the beginning, each of them taking over where the others’ knowledge left off. Melenor nodded along, her face impassive. Keith was used to this. It was hard to surprise a Clayr, as they had Seen most things ahead of time (or at least, they were good at pretending they had). Finally, Allura related everything that Lotor had told them. Only then did Melenor’s face betray her emotion. 

“Honerva…” she said quietly, when Allura was finished. 

“Who?” Allura stammered. 

Melenor shook her head, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to decide how much to say. “We do not speak of her anymore, and you are too young to remember. But this is a familiar story. The necromancer you call Haggar was once a Clayr. She was banished long ago for practicing forbidden magic. We have not Seen her for decades. We thought her dead.” 

“A Clayr cannot become a necromancer!” said Allura, distraught. 

Keith remembered the Book. Immortality was a powerful motivator, for some. And Death had a way of lending people just enough power to destroy themselves. “Anyone can become a necromancer,” he said. 

He glanced at Lotor, whose sardonic grin was gone. Lotor stared at Melenor. Anger and disbelief and something Keith hadn’t seen on him before, something wounded and vulnerable, warred in his expression. He hadn’t known. 

“We will convene the Nine Day Watch to investigate this further,” said Melenor to her daughter. She gestured at Lotor. “During that time, he will be your responsibility. He cannot be trusted. But he is, apparently, one of us.” 

Melenor waved her hand, and Lotor’s shackles fell away. The binding on his lips disappeared too, but he did not speak as he stood and rubbed his wrists. Allura beckoned. He began to follow her as she left the room. 

He passed Keith on his way out. As he did, he finally exercised his voice to say, “I seems you and I have more in common than we thought.” 

“You might be from a Charter bloodline, but that alone doesn’t make us friends,” Keith answered.

Lotor paused in front of his chair and stared him down. “It is only by the luck of our births that one of us is sanctioned by the realm while the other is vilified. If you can be a force for good, cannot I, as well?”

“Maybe,” Keith allowed. “Unless there is too much of your mother in you.” 

“And maybe you can learn to trust me,” said Lotor. “Unless there is too much of yours in you.” And he followed Allura into the corridor, closing the door after him. 

Melenor turned to her remaining guests. “These are strange times. My friends, you are welcome in our glacier for as long as you need refuge. We have rooms ready for visitors. Hira will show you the way.” 

Pidge, Hunk, and Lance shuffled wearily into the corridor. Keith started after them, already looking forward to a hot bath and a warm bed. But then Melenor said, “Your Highness, a word?” and Keith stopped in the doorway. “I have one more matter to discuss with you. It is of a delicate nature,” she added.

Shiro glanced between Melenor, imposing with her icy eyes and white robes, and Keith, unmovable by his side. “Keith can hear it, too,” he said. 

Melenor tilted her head a little as she appraised the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. “Yes, I suppose he can,” she finally said. She motioned for Keith to close the door, and did not continue until she was sure the three of them were alone. She gave Shiro a wistful smile. “I am glad to have you here. I have not seen you in person since you were a child, and none of us have Seen you at all for the last two years, until your reappearance in Belisaere. It has been most concerning. But now that you are back, the future is clear once more.” 

“What have you Seen of my future?” said Shiro. 

“Your future is the future of the whole Kingdom,” said Melenor. “Since the time of your birth, we have Seen you on the throne.” 

Shiro took a step back, then another. His heel hit the bench, and he sat on it, looking dazed. “That can’t be,” he muttered. “I had my chance.” 

Melenor spread her hands. “We see many futures. Some are murky, some improbable. Some will never come to pass. But your destiny has always been a clear and shining beacon within the fog of uncertainty. A vision shared strongly amongst all Clayr. You will be King.” 

Keith stepped in front of Shiro and crossed his arms. Shiro was in more danger than he’d thought. A disgraced prince might have managed to slip away from the line of succession unmissed. A prophesied King would never be free of Belisaere’s watchful eye. “Who else knows?” he demanded. 

“Such prophecies as this are shared with the heads of each Charter bloodline as a matter of principle,” Melenor explained. “We told the old King in his time, and Queen Sanda was informed when she ascended the throne. The elder Wallmakers know, too.” 

“And my mother?”

“Of course.” 

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” said Shiro. 

“Your grandfather requested we keep it a secret,” said Melenor. “He wanted you to have a normal childhood, untroubled by the pull of destiny. And when he died, Queen Sanda forbade us to tell you. I am only breaking that promise now because the kingdom faces a threat that is beyond any petty squabbles the Royals might have amongst themselves. Knowledge is power, and we will need every advantage to protect ourselves against what Honerva has become.” 

Shiro looked up at her, his shoulders sagging as if the burden of this knowledge was already weighing on him. “What should I do?”

“Our visions are landmarks, not instruction manuals,” said Melenor gently. 

Keith touched Shiro’s shoulder and said, “You don’t have to do anything for now. We can decide our next move when we’re rested. Come on. I know the way.” He’d been a guest of the Clayr many times before, and he was looking forward to their comfortable beds and good food for Shiro’s sake as much as his own. He helped Shiro to his feet and guided him toward the corridor. 

Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker? Since they were children, Shiro had spent so much time and energy trying to set himself on the right path. So many doors had been closed to him, so many opportunities lost. He’d spent his life grasping in the dark for a way forward. But all along, his destiny had been foretold. 

Meanwhile, Keith had always known every step of his own path. Or so he’d thought. 

He didn’t realize that he’d hesitated until Melenor said, “You have another question for me.” 

Keith was standing half in the corridor, his hand on the doorjamb. He looked over his shoulder and asked, “Have you Seen me become Abhorsen?”

Melenor regarded him from head to toe. Keys on his coat. Bells on his chest. Sword on his hip. She said, “I do not need a second Sight for that. My eyes are enough,” and smiled as if those words were a comfort. 

\-----

Despite Keith’s anxiety, the Clayr’s hospitality was a welcome relief after so long on the road. The mountain tunnels were heated by underground springs, so the stone floors were always warm and the baths were scalding hot. He scrubbed a week’s worth of grime, sweat, and blood off himself while he counted his bruises and new scars. 

Between the Clayr’s upper halls and the travelers’ barracks down below were several apartments set aside for visiting dignitaries and honored guests. Once he was clean, Keith found a bed there and collapsed into it. There was no sun under the mountain to herald the morning. Keith slept for as long as his exhausted body demanded. 

When he woke, aching everywhere, he made his way to the Lower Refectory in search of something to eat. Without his coat and weapons, he was able to hide behind his hair and blend in with the merchants and mercenaries passing through this portion of the glacier. It wouldn’t be a secret for long that the Abhorsen-in-Waiting was here. But at least for now, he was glad to avoid the sidelong looks and awkward questions. 

He poked his head into the aperture leading to the kitchens and reached for a plate. He was about to load it with whatever the Clayr had set out for breakfast (or maybe it was lunchtime, now?) when Hunk’s voice called out, “Oh hey, you’re awake!” over the sounds of sizzling oil and clattering pans. 

Keith looked up from the food and peered into the kitchen. Clayr rushed back and forth, paying him no mind as they worked. Hunk’s black hair stood out amongst so many clouds of white. He beamed at Keith while wielding a spatula. “I can’t believe you never told me about this place!” he said. “There are merchants here from all over! They have ingredients from up north, from Estwael, even from across the ocean! There are spices in this kitchen I’ve never even heard of! The ladies were nice enough to let me poke around.” 

In Keith’s experience, the Clayr were strict about which sections of the glacier were off limits to outsiders. The kitchens were definitely on that list. Keith had found that out the hard way as a child while helping himself to lumps of sugar. But Hunk had a cooking station all to himself, and some of the kitchen girls were smiling shyly at him as they brought him samples of their more exotic ingredients. He seemed to have charmed them. 

“I should have known you’d like it here,” said Keith as he gathered up a couple of rolls out of a basket. They were cold and a little hard. He was definitely late for breakfast. “I’m glad you’re having a good time.” 

Hunk shuffled through the crowded kitchen to join Keith at the window and pluck the stale rolls out of his hand. “Go sit down,” he ordered. “I’m making you something special.” 

Keith dodged the other visitors in the Lower Refectory and found an unoccupied table in the corner. It wasn’t long before Hunk emerged from the kitchen holding a plate piled high with something that gave off steam and smelled heavenly. Keith reached for the plate, his mouth already watering. But instead of putting it in his hands or on the table, Hunk held it up and just out of reach. 

“Okay,” Hunk sighed. “Now that we’re not hiking up a mountain while being chased by monsters, I have something to say.” 

“Hunk…” Keith groaned, his eyes still on the food. His stomach felt like it was caving in on itself. “Can it wait?” He stretched to reach for the plate.

Hunk held it a little higher. “Nope. You owe me an apology.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Keith immediately. Then he tore his gaze away from the food to look at Hunk and say, “Wait, for what?” 

Hunk’s cheerful smile turned forced. “For that stunt you tried to pull against Zarkon.” 

This again. “I know none of you like the choice I made,” said Keith. “But I did the best thing I thought I could to keep everyone safe.” 

“Everyone except you.”

“It wasn’t an unreasonable trade.” 

In all the years Keith had known him, he’d never seen Hunk get angry. But now, he looked like he was getting close. “Oh, so because you’re Abhorsen you get to decide who lives and who dies?”

Keith threw up his hands and sputtered, “Literally, yes!” 

“Keith…” Hunk was close to shouting, and the other diners in the Refectory were starting to notice. Hunk stopped himself, took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice was calmer. “Keith, I look forward to your visits every year. You’re so brave, so much braver than me, and you put others before yourself every time. I respect that. I look up to you so much. And I’m grateful to you and your mom for saving my town, but that’s not why I spend time with you and cook for you and try to make you laugh. I do those things because you’re a good person and I want you to be happy.” 

Keith didn’t even try to respond. He didn’t trust himself to speak. When Hunk set the plate of food in front of him, he didn’t touch it even though he was still starving. 

Hunk sat beside him on the bench and watched as Keith stared at his food. “Look, man, I don’t want you to apologize for almost dying. That’s not what this is about. It’s just that I love you like you’re my own family. And you asked me to trust you. And I did. I do. And then you made me help you try to kill yourself. I think I get an apology for that.” 

“I apologize,” said Keith, genuinely this time. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”

Hunk wrapped two big, soft arms around Keith and squeezed him to his chest. Keith patted Hunk’s elbow, awkward but grateful. Hunk said, “Do you think Shiro is the only one who cares about you? I know it’s lonely being Abhorsen, but don’t forget that you’ve got friends. Now eat your food.”

Hunk paused just long enough to make sure Keith was enjoying his meal before disappearing back into the kitchen. As he went out, he pivoted to avoid Pidge, who was on her way in. She quickly spotted Keith and crossed the Refectory to sit beside him. 

“Hey, this wasn’t on the menu!” she said as she grabbed a mouthful off his plate. As soon as she tasted it, she reached for more. 

Keith blocked her fork with his hand. “Hunk made it special for me.”

“Is that why he was out here?” said Pidge, readjusting her angle of attack. “I thought he was going to yell at you for trying to go out in a blaze of glory.” 

“He did that, too.” Keith started shoveling food in his mouth to keep Pidge from stealing too much of it. 

“And Shiro?” 

“Yeah, yesterday,” Keith mumbled through a full mouth. “Why? Is it your turn to yell at me?” 

“Nah, I figure you’ve got the point by now.” She finally backed off and let him eat as she continued to talk. “This place is pretty cool. I haven’t been here since I was a little kid. The Steamworks has technology like I’ve never seen, and the Builders are going to let me take a look at their new project tomorrow. They’re extending part of a tunnel, and they have to update the wards to fit. Can you imagine modifying a spell as old as that? When you account for the geographic scope of it, and all the complexities that come from hundreds of years of mages building on top of each other, this place has got to rival the Wall itself in terms of sheer engineering.” 

Pidge babbled on as Keith finished his food and scraped up the final crumbs with the side of his fork. It seemed his friends had wasted no time in finding the parts of the glacier that interested them most. That was good. At least some of them would have fun while they were stuck in here for who-knew-how-long. 

“Where are you off to now?” said Keith. 

Pidge beamed. “The Library! I have to wait for Romelle, though. They won’t let me in there without her as a chaperone.” 

The Clayr’s Library was a stronghold of knowledge more ancient and vast than any in the Old Kingdom, but it was also extremely dangerous. There were more than just books down there. Generations of Clayr has secreted away artifacts, laid traps, and sealed up specimens only to leave them forgotten for some hapless Assistant Librarian to stumble across. But if anyone could handle that place, it was Pidge. “Listen to Romelle, and don’t wander off,” he advised as he got up and brought his empty plate to the scullery window. From there, he headed for the door. 

“Where are you going?” Pidge called after him. 

“To get my bells,” Keith sighed. “There’s one more person who needs a turn to yell at me.” 

\-----

Keith stood silently, his hands at his sides and his back straight. He tried not to let his eyes slide down or off to one side. The river of Death was cold where it swirled around his ankles, but not as cold as Krolia’s stare. She looked at him as if she could pin him to the riverbed with only her eyes. The comfortable way her well-worn bells hung on her reminded Keith of what a real Abhorsen looked like. For all his accomplishments, he was still only an apprentice, and he answered to his mother. 

The summoning spell had worked correctly this time. Though Krolia was still hundreds of miles to the south, her spirit had followed Keith’s thread back to him in Death. He’d told her everything. There was no point in keeping secrets, now. Krolia needed to know all the details of the tangled mess Keith and his friends had made of kingdom affairs if she was to have a chance of fixing it.

Krolia’s anger was fierce, but Keith knew that excuses wouldn’t help him. He kept his shoulders back as he said, “I’m sorry for putting you in this position,” and waited.

But instead of berating him, Krolia sighed and said, “I’ll begin traveling north right away. It will take me some weeks, since it sounds as though you’ve destroyed every Paperwing between here and Belisaere. Try not to betray any more monarchs until I’ve had a chance to negotiate with Sanda for your safety and Shiro’s.” 

“Thank you,” said Keith. He had, in effect, forced her to choose between her son and her oath to the crown. He’d known he could trust her, but it still took him aback that she didn’t even hesitate. 

“You did well to get Shiro to neutral ground,” she allowed. “And it seems you held your own in battle. Let me see those.” She held out her hand for the bells Keith was wearing. 

Keith slipped the bandolier over his head and handed them over. When it came time to let go, he hesitated, and Krolia had to pull them out of his hand. He’d fought for those bells. Shiro had fought to get them for him. But he was not meant to have bells yet, and these ones were especially dangerous. Krolia was certain to take them away and destroy them. 

She carefully drew Ranna and inspected it. “Necromancer’s bells,” she observed. “You used these?”

“Not well,” Keith admitted. 

Krolia nodded knowingly. “They’ll be more docile now that their original master is gone, but Free magic bells are still tricky.” She replaced Ranna, and ran the bandolier through her hands to touch the handles of each of the bells. She checked the leather strap inside and out. It wasn’t until she started fiddling with the clasps that Keith wondered whether she was stalling. When she spoke again, she bowed her head, resigned. “You’ll have to harness them with Charter magic to truly make them an Abhorsen’s bells,” she said, and handed them back to Keith. 

He took them like the trophy they were and settled them back over his shoulder. “You’re letting me keep them?” 

“I reserve the right to change my mind later,” she snapped. “But you earned them. You deserve a chance to tame them. The spells to do so are recorded in a book written by an ancient Abhorsen. I was going to assign you to read it once you’d progressed a bit further, but perhaps it’s time. It’s called The Book of Marmora.”

“I’ve seen it,” Keith realized. “It’s at Abhorsen’s House.” He’d scoured Abhorsen’s library for two long years looking for any secret or trick that might bring Shiro back to him. But he’d never opened The Book of Marmora. Its cover was laced with protective spells and warnings that had alarmed him enough to make him leave it alone. 

“There is a copy in the Clayr’s library,” said Krolia. “If they remember where they put it. Be on guard when you read it. The book will test you before giving up its secrets, and it won’t go easy on you like I do. The Abhorsen who wrote it was a little paranoid.”

“I’ll be careful,” Keith promised. 

Krolia nodded and turned toward the misty gate that separated them from Life. It would lead her back to her body, and Keith back to his. But Keith didn’t move, and Krolia stopped just before passing through to turn back and study his face. “You have something more to say?” 

Keith hadn’t mentioned it yet, because it hadn’t seemed relevant to the issue at hand. But he found that he couldn’t let Krolia go without talking about it. “The Clayr have Seen that Shiro will be King,” he said. 

“So, the Clayr are sharing their prophecies with you.” Krolia’s voice held a sour note, though she didn’t sound surprised. “I wish they’d wait for me to hand over the mantle before treating you like Abhorsen.” 

Keith didn’t let her distract him. “You knew he was meant to rule.” 

Krolia’s voice was guarded as she answered, “I know what Melenor told me she Saw.” 

“Then why didn’t you support him against Sanda?” Keith said, trying to ask instead of demand. 

“The Clayr have been wrong before,” Krolia advised. “Take their prophecies as guidance, but do not substitute them for your own judgement. When the old King died, Shiro was a child. So were you. Neither of you was ready for the responsibilities of the crown.” 

“What does the crown have to do with me?”

Krolia quirked her face, telling him with a wrinkle of her nose to stop playing stupid. “Whatever affects Shiro will affect you. I could not prevent that. So, I kept him off the throne back then.” She paused. Considered. Continued, “Just like I kept you off the Estwael mission.” 

“I was supposed to be at Estwael?” His mind spun. No one had ever given him reason to believe that such a thing was possible. He could have been there. He could have protected Shiro. Or he could have been taken alongside him. Either way, they would have been together. 

Krolia nodded. “Sanda ordered it. I refused.”

“Why?”

“Listen to me, Keith,” said Krolia, speaking slowly in the way that she did when she was about to explain something in a roundabout way. “A partnership between a crown prince and an Abhorsen-in-Waiting is a powerful political alliance. The two of you have the potential to shape the future of the kingdom for the rest of your lives. You were young back then, and not yet in the public eye. But still, people were starting to notice. You and Shiro were poised to take Belisaere by storm.”

Keith protested, “That’s not why we were friends.”

“Of course not. But even your friendship was a threat for anyone who had other plans for the Kingdom. Sanda is ambitious. She wants her children to rule after she dies. That won’t happen if Shiro makes a bid for the throne as an adult, bolstered by a prophecy from the Clayr and the unthinking devotion of the Abhorsen.”

Even here, in Death, where no living soul could possibly hear him, Keith lowered his voice when he said, “Did Sanda sell Shiro out?”

“I don’t know,” said Krolia, but her eyes told him that he’d asked the right question. 

They walked back through the misty gate, wading out of the frigid water and into their bodies. Keith’s legs were cramped under him. He’d been kneeling a long time. The warm air of the Clayr’s tunnels melted the frost that had formed on his skin and clothes. 

He was in a small chamber far from the main part of the Clayr’s little city. One of the stone walls was cracked and buckling under the weight of the glacier sliding imperceptibly above it. Many such wings and annexes had been destroyed when the glacier took a path through them. The Clayr cared little; they just blocked the damage off and built again in a different direction. But in these ruined and abandoned places, the protective wards that lay over the rest of the glacier were weak. That was why Keith had come here. Anywhere else, an attempt to walk in Death would have butted him up against a powerful magical barrier like the one at Abhorsen’s House. From outside, it was impenetrable. From inside, it was not. If Keith had pushed through it and into Death, he would have run the risk of damaging the entire network of Charter spells that protected the Clayr’s home. Instead, he’d walked along the ice-cracked corridors with their crumbling walls until the wards faded out and he could cross over with no resistance. 

Shiro was leaning against the wall nearby, half-asleep. When Keith shifted to stretch his legs, Shiro opened his eyes and joined him by his side. “You’re back,” he sighed, relieved. “Did you…”

“Haggar wasn’t there,” Keith assured him, brushing frost flakes off his surcoat. He’d put his armor back on for protection in Death. Shiro was wearing a simple shirt and trousers borrowed from the Clayr – clothes more suitable for the safe and warm environment. Someone had tied the right sleeve up to keep it from flapping around. The knot was pulling the fabric across his chest in a way that left very little to Keith’s imagination. He swallowed, and added, “I talked to mom. She’s on her way.” 

He was about to tell him Krolia’s theory on Sanda, but just then Shiro reached out to comb his fingers through Keith’s hair, breaking the ice that had formed there, and Keith decided that it could wait. 

Shiro gathered up Keith’s hands and blew on them to warm them up, as he’d done many times before. Keith was often cold, and the two of them had always enjoyed an easy, gentle intimacy. But since their kiss on the mountain steps, every gesture and touch held new meaning. The sensual charge in the air between them was new, and so was the kiss Shiro pressed to the palm of Keith’s hand. 

Keith tried to see in him what Krolia, Melenor, and even Sanda saw. The future of the kingdom. A political force. A threat. He couldn’t do it. He only saw a man. A perfect man who was smiling shyly at him while he laced their fingers together, squeezing Keith’s small, cold hand in his big, warm one. 

“They’re calling the Watch today,” said Shiro. “They were handing out tokens in the upper halls.” 

Keith held Shiro’s hand tighter as he asked, “When will you have to go?” 

“Allura says that Lotor has a closer connection to Haggar than I do. They’re going to focus their Sight on him. They might change their minds later, but for now my time is my own.” 

“You’re saying we have the next nine days to ourselves?” 

“Seems that way.” 

Keith glanced down the corridor. This wasn’t a private place, but it was remote. They hadn’t passed any Clayr coming here. There was no reason for anyone to visit this long-empty hall. Emboldened, he slid himself into Shiro’s lap and ran his hands up his back, lifting his shirt as he went. Shiro shivered and winced at his touch, but didn’t pull away. 

“You’re still so cold,” he said, touching Keith’s face. 

Keith shifted his hands higher, exploring each curve of muscle and seeking out new patches of deliciously warm skin. “So, warm me up.” 

Shiro laughed softly right before their lips met. Their first kiss had been a rushed, greedy explosion of pent-up longing. Now, they took their time. Shiro kissed him softly, over and over again, until Keith’s pale cheeks flushed pink. Keith wasn’t sure how he managed to undo the clasp on his collar one-handed, but as soon as Shiro managed to pull his surcoat and armor aside he trailed slow kisses down Keith’s jaw and neck. Each touch lit a fire in him to burn out the chill of Death.


	16. A memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay! I have another fic that's been taking up a lot of my time, but I'll try to be a little more regular with updates to this one. 
> 
> This is a Lotor flashback chapter, so warnings for vague references to child neglect and abuse.

Downhill of the Clayr’s glacier, past where the westernmost towns petered out into sparse trading posts and scrappy settlements, several days’ ride into the craggy and windswept wilderness, Lotor sat perched on a ledge of rock. All around him, the stratified stone alternately jutted and receded to form many such ledges, some small enough to be a seat for a boy of thirteen years and some massive enough to be stairsteps for some fantastical giant. The rock at his back continued its jagged way skyward. Lotor’s gangly legs dangled over the dizzying drop to the valley below. The height didn’t bother him. He had grown up on this cliff. 

Deep within an alcove in the rocks was hidden the entrance to his mother’s lair. Long ago she had hollowed out part of the cliffside to make a home in which to raise her son. He had his own room in there, as well as a shared study and a small library. There were other rooms deeper in the rock, where Lotor was rarely allowed. A workshop. A laboratory. Cages. 

It had been difficult to crawl out of those catacombs, dodging his mother’s Dead Hands which wandered every hall without rest or sleep. They acted as her servants and guards, and as Lotor’s minders. But they were slow and stupid, and he had grown quicker and more cunning. His mother didn’t realize that he’d been slipping their watch to explore the cliffside alone. She paid more attention to her research than to her maturing son. 

As evening approached, a billowing cloud of dust on the horizon signaled the approach of a caravan. Lotor curled up against the cliff as he watched it trundle nearer, making himself small and trying not to be noticed. Not many caravans passed this way. The main trade routes were farther south. Only a couple of nomadic tribes chose to pass this close to the cliffs, and even they had begun to avoid the area once the mysterious disappearances began. Haggar had picked them off one by one. Now Lotor recognized some of their faces among the slumping Hands who waited on her. 

He sat as still as a stone on his ledge as the caravan slowed, stopped, and made camp. Fires sparked in the dusky gray. Horses were tied with long lines to let them graze on the sparse patches of grass. Lotor could not see the nomads’ faces from his high vantage point. Only the painted, exaggerated faces of the personalized masks that each of them wore on top of their heads, ready to be pulled down at any moment. Each mask was different, and everyone wore one down to the smallest child. This tribe didn’t like showing their faces to outsiders. 

One of the masks milling about below was different. A solid sheet of beaten metal covered the upper half of the face, with nothing to represent eyes. The wood base protruded from the bottom, forming the shape of a pointed jaw painted with a toothy mouth. The long-legged, broad-shouldered girl wearing it separated herself from the rest of the camp unnoticed. As she crept over the rocky tumble toward the base of the cliff, she pulled the mask down to cover her face. 

Lotor scooted on his ledge to where the slope was not as steep so that he could slip and clamber his way down the cliffside. It would have been treacherous even for a full-grown man, and the price of a single mistake was a messy death over a hundred feet below. But Lotor knew the way. He had long ago mapped and memorized the safest route down the cliff. And when he slipped, he only had to dip his mind into a tangle of Free magic and squeeze to pull himself back within reach of a handhold. Free magic could be difficult and dangerous, he knew, but to him it had always come as natural as breathing. 

By the time he neared the ground, the sun was starting to set and the girl was just arriving at the base of the cliff. Though her eyeless mask completely covered her face, she picked her way across the barrens confidently. Her feet hovered only for a fraction of a second with each step, feeling out the terrain before trusting her weight to it. Back when Lotor had first met her, he’d wondered what trick she was using to see through the eyeless metal mask. It had taken him months to believe her when she’d told him she was blind. 

She didn’t seem to have noticed him, so he called out from above, “Narti!” 

Her head snapped toward the sound of his voice. He couldn’t see her face, but he recognized a smile in the playful way she greeted him with a waggle of her fingers.

He slid on his rear the rest of the way down to the ground, landing beside her with a thump. “It’s good to see you again,” he told her. 

Narti raised her hands and performed a short series of gestures to reply, “Good to hear to your voice. Are you safe?” 

She didn’t know the true extent of the horrors that went on in Haggar’s stronghold, but she’d caught on quickly to the way Lotor talked about his mother. Even if she didn’t know what Haggar was, she understood that she was dangerous and cruel. “I’m fine,” was all Lotor said, because to say more would have been to admit that he was not fine after all. “How long are you staying, this time?”

Narti signed, “Only three days.” 

Her tribe passed through this valley every few months, and never stayed in one place for long. It had taken months of trial-and-error spread over years of visits before Lotor understood Narti’s signing. Even though they were alone, she never cheated by speaking out loud. As well as never showing their faces to strangers, her tribe rarely let anyone hear their voices. 

“Have you told them about me?” he asked. 

She nodded, the light of the setting sun bobbing up and down the side of her mask. She signed, “They think you are…” and then a sign he didn’t know. 

“A necromancer?” he guessed, earning a shake of her head. “A revenant? A ghost?”

Narti flicked her hand, dismissing the whole line of guessing. Her shoulders were up and her arms tense. Whatever her family thought, it frustrated her. 

“They think you made me up.” 

Narti nodded. 

Lotor couldn’t help but laugh. “We’ll soon show them different,” he said. “Are you ready? Like we talked about last time?” 

“Yes,” she signed. “Meet me here on the evening of the third day. We’ll take you away from this place. You don’t need to be afraid anymore.” 

Lotor was always afraid. He was as afraid to leave as he was to stay. But he and Narti had planned this. Her family would take him as far as the border towns of the Old Kingdom. He would pay his way with work, and earn an apprenticeship in something more honorable than necromancy. He would lay his Free Magic aside. If he could find someone to baptize him, maybe he could even ply his innate magical talent toward the Charter, instead. He could have a new life, free of his mother and her macabre quest for power. 

“I’ll be here,” he said, pressing a hand to her wrist. 

They conversed long into the night, hidden at the base of the cliff. Narti told him of the exotic lands she’d traveled from – the heat, the smells of the spices, the softness of their foreign textiles. Lotor stopped her whenever she signed something he didn’t understand, and he reveled in learning each new word. Lotor showed her the spells he’d mastered since her last visit. She didn’t shrink away from the corrosive bite of Free Magic. She had felt stranger things on her journeys. 

When the moon was high and the stars bright, singing voices pulsed quietly from the direction of the little encampment. Narti turned her ears toward them. “Time to go,” she signed. 

“I’ll see you soon,” said Lotor as she stood to pick her slow and careful way back over the rocks toward her family’s fires. 

But he did not see her for two days. Usually, when she was near, Narti would slip away from her parents throughout the day and seek Lotor out in the no-man’s-land between her people’s wagons and his cliffside home. But this time, though Lotor perched on the rocks and watched the masked figures move this way and that in the distance, none of them broke away to tip-toe over the uneven ground in his direction. 

It was disappointing, but not unexpected. Sometimes Narti’s family gave her so many chores, or she was watched so carefully, that she was unable to visit Lotor at all. The longer such absences went on, the more determined she became to escape, until she returned to him full of apologies. He comforted himself with this thought as he sat huddled on a rocky shelf outside Haggar’s cave, his knees drawn up to his chest to hide his dangling feet from her lurking Hands. No matter what obstacles she faced, she wouldn’t let her caravan leave without him. She’d promised.

When dusk fell on the third day, Lotor donned the closest things he had to traveling clothes and retrieved the bag he’d packed from a hidden nook near the ceiling of his room. He rolled up some of his remaining clothes – too flimsy to wear on a journey and not valuable enough to bother bringing with him – and arranged them under the blankets on his bed before spinning a simple spell to make the pile gently rise and fall as if it were a breathing body. The Hands tasked with minding him usually wouldn’t wake him unless Haggar summoned him directly. This simple illusion might buy him a day or two, if he was lucky enough to fool them for that long. 

It would not fool Haggar herself, but Lotor hadn’t so much as seen his mother since Narti’s arrival. She must be working hard on the development of a new spell or engrossed in some deep line of research, Lotor thought, feeling fortunate. When something caught her focus, she had been known to take meals in her laboratory and leave Lotor to his own devices for days or even weeks at a time. Depending on what her obsession was this time, Lotor might be across the Nailway before she even realized he was gone. 

Lotor crept outside and bounced his way down the cliff. In his excitement, he didn’t bother to be careful with his handholds and footings. He practically flew down the path, flexing his magic just enough to keep himself from being injured by one fall after another. 

When he reached the ground, Free Magic cushioning him so that he landed gracefully despite the fifteen-foot drop he’d taken to get there, he was startled to find Narti already waiting for him. He hadn’t seen her crossing the valley, but he supposed he might have missed her in his haste. “You made it,” he panted, out of breath from his breakneck tear down the cliff. 

Narti lifted her hand to respond, but instead of signing she simply beckoned him with one curled finger. The motion was strangely mechanical compared to the fluid way Lotor was used to seeing her hands move. But he didn’t have time to wonder at this, because she was already turning to walk back toward her family’s camp, and Lotor had to hurry to follow. 

Narti walked with none of her usual grace. Even though she was blind, she’d always walked with such delicate, deliberate movements that Lotor had hardly ever seen her stumble. Now she hurried, kicking pebbles as she went and tripping over larger rocks. When she almost fell, Lotor grabbed for her arm, but she quickly pushed him away. 

“Is something wrong?” he asked her. She wouldn’t give him an answer beyond a jerky shake of her head. Her masked face betrayed no expression. Lotor felt a chill that had nothing to do with the setting of the sun. 

He’d almost managed to banish his sense of dread by the time they reached the encampment. Campfires crackled invitingly, and the wagons were arranged in a protective arc around the idyllic tableau. As he stepped into the circle, Lotor felt as though he were leaving his mother’s wilderness and entering the safety of Narti’s home. But the feeling was short-lived as he quickly noticed how quiet it was. Though there were dozens of people around him – standing guard on the perimeter, sitting by the fires, perched on the wagons – they were preternaturally still. No one spoke or moved, even when Lotor walked into their midst. Every single face was covered by a mask. 

Suddenly, in unison, the masks all turned to look at Lotor. As he flinched under the combined weight of their stares, he was hit with a wave of stench that assaulted his sense of magic just as much as his sense of smell. The whole camp reeked of death. 

A grip like steel clamped down on his shoulder from behind. Lotor recognized the sensation of being grabbed by one of his mother’s Hands – pulling him down from hiding places, roughly guiding him into chairs and behind locked doors and into ritual circles at Haggar’s command, dragging him down into her laboratory while he dug his heels in and begged not to go. He’d learned long ago that it was better to submit than to fight. But this time, disorientation and panic overtook him. Power crackled at his fingertips as he spun and lashed out at the creature holding him. 

Narti’s mask spun away into the darkness, flung by the wave of magical force he’d summoned. Her fingers loosened their grip on his shoulder as she slumped lifelessly to the ground. 

Time slowed. His ears rang from the concussive force of his own attack. It took far too long for his mind to reconcile Narti’s crumpled body with the Hand he’d expected to see. Only then, in the light of the campfires, did he notice the blue tint to her lips and fingernails, the waxy sheen of her skin, and the lividity of old blood pooled on the back of her neck and arms. She was dead. Not from his attack just now, but for days. 

When more bodies shuffled up beside him, holding him with vicelike fingers and cold skin, Lotor didn’t resist. His limbs were too weak and his head too light to summon the magic to fight them. He barely managed to look up and recognize the dozens of people encircling him. Men and women, adults and children, clad in their clan colors, their faces hidden behind masks of wood and metal. He’d watched them from afar for years. He’d dreamed of being this close to them. But Haggar had gotten here first. The new family he’d hoped would save him were now just more Hands for her silent army. 

They dragged him away from the firelight and the wagons and Narti, and took him back to the cliff and his mother’s lair within. 

He learned his lesson well that day. If ever he thought he was outside his mother’s sight, he was wrong. If ever he thought he was beyond her power, he was wrong. No matter how far he ran, if ever he thought he could be free or safe or happy, as long as she was alive, he was wrong. 

And those nearest to him would pay the price for his mistake.


	17. Lotor, watching

Lotor picked his way carefully through the hall of ice. The blindfold was heavy against his eyes and thick enough that not even a hint of light shined through. With each step, he tapped the ground in front of him with his toe before trusting his weight to it. One step after another, with a dancer’s grace he’d learned from a little nomad girl many years ago. 

It was cold. Though the rest of the Clayr’s tunnels had warm floors and comfortable air, he could now feel the chill seeping through the bottoms of his shoes. When he reached a hand out to the tunnel wall to try and get his bearings, the moisture of his fingertips stuck to it painfully. They were not in the stone of the mountain anymore. They were inside the glacier itself, encased in ice. 

Allura walked beside him, holding his hand to guide him through the twists and turns. “I’m sorry about the blindfold,” she murmured, low enough to avoid being overheard by the Clayr walking just ahead and behind them. “It’s the law for any visitor of the Nine Day Watch.” 

“Am I a visitor?” said Lotor loudly, not caring who heard him. “My mother was a Clayr.” 

Rather than seeing, he felt as Allura winced beside him. “Considering who she was, that might not gain you as much sympathy as you think. Besides, it doesn’t matter since you don’t have the Sight.” 

“Sight or no, it matters to me!” The hall of ice rang with his voice, and he heard whispers from the other Clayr around them. 

Allura squeezed his hand. “Don’t be angry with me,” she said, her quiet voice not quite concealing her frustration. “I’m trying to help you.” 

The gentle pressure of her hand on his quieted his petulant outburst. He knew that she was only touching him out of obligation, but at the moment her hand was his only point of contact in a darkened world, just as Allura herself seemed to be his only tentative ally in this strange place. “You’re right. Thank you, Allura.” 

They wound through the tunnels, back and forth, until Lotor had lost all sense of direction and time. Finally, the claustrophobic reverberation of the narrow hallway opened up into the languid echoes of a larger chamber, and Allura removed his blindfold. 

The Observatory was an enormous room, far larger than should have been structurally possible to carve out of ice. Lotor had the impression of columns and other decorative elements along the walls, but the details were washed out by the Charter-lights dotted around the room, their shine reflecting off the ice. Lotor, his eyes accustomed to darkness, had to squint for several seconds while he adjusted to the oppressive brightness. 

When his vision returned to him fully, the most interesting feature of the room turned out not to be the walls, but the ceiling. It was curved and featureless, polished mirror-smooth. An enormous lens made of ice. 

Allura stood beside him, resplendent in white and gold. Before, when the guards were whisking him through the glacier to be delivered to the Watch, he had barely had time or attention to glimpse her. Now he saw that she had traded her simple traveling robes for a long, white dress intricately embroidered with seven-pointed stars. Her fluffy cloud of hair was pulled back and covered with a net that sparkled when she moved – there were tiny jewels sewn into the lattice. 

“Stay here,” Allura advised as she guided him against the wall, out of the way of the dozens of Clayr who were taking their places. The crowd parted for her as she approached her mother, Melenor, similarly dazzling in her robes. She was holding a wand in each hand – one metal, gray and gleaming, and the other a matte white like bone. They spoke softly, and they must have thought no one could overhear. But Lotor, with ears sharpened by a lifetime of vigilance born of fear, easily heard Allura say, “I have a personal stake in this now. Mother, please let me speak for the Watch!” 

“When exploring the future,” said Melenor, “it is best to remain neutral. Your Sight is strong, but your feelings might betray you.” 

Allura passionately replied, “My feelings do not enter into this. All my life, I have Seen the evil that lurks outside our walls reflected in ice. Now I have seen it with my own eyes. I want nothing more than to find a path forward to vanquish it.” 

Melenor hesitated, and said something Lotor couldn’t hear. But in the end, she handed over the wands, and Allura returned to Lotor wielding one in each hand like some ethereal goddess. 

“Follow me,” she bade him, and led him to the center of the room. 

As if all possessed by the same force, the Clayr around the chamber stopped their conversations mid-word and fell into a perfect circle around her. It happened before Lotor could wonder at it, before he had even finished shuffling into place beside Allura. With all the Clayr facing in toward the two of them, even Melenor with her piercing gaze, Lotor felt like a bug under glass. They had him completely surrounded. There was nowhere to run. 

Lotor flinched at the disproportionate sound as Allura tapped the wands together. “Let us begin,” she said, her voice resonating around the walls. 

Her cousins in white answered in eerie unison, “Let us begin!” 

“Let us See!” Allura cried. Then, quieter, she said to Lotor, “Don’t speak.” She reached out and took his hands in hers.

Though he was sure she meant for him to follow the order immediately, he couldn’t help but counter, “Why not?”

“Because I won’t be able to hear you,” said Allura as her eyes began to gleam. 

Charter magic, delicately woven and sickly sweet, rose from the floor and wreathed itself around the circle of Clayr like spun sugar. It flowed out of their hands and into the air, rising toward the icy lens of the ceiling above. The marks splashed onto the surface, swirling in myriad shapes, and for a moment Lotor thought he could make out a picture in them. But then they shifted again, and it was gone. Though he peered at it as intently as he could, he could see nothing but a chaotic tangle of foreign symbols and strange magic. 

Allura, too, was staring up at the ice. Though her eyes were glowing with some otherworldly light, Lotor could still see the way they tracked back and forth, taking in the image above. She was clearly Seeing more than he could see. 

Lotor expected the vision to last a few seconds, or maybe a minute or two. But ages seemed to pass, the Clayr around him frozen in concentration and Allura gripping his hands tight. He waggled his fingers within her grasp. She didn’t react. He leaned in close, peering at her dewy skin and coiled hair from a finger’s breadth away. Her eyes didn’t move from the ceiling, though her cheek twitched the tiniest bit when he blew gently upon it. She seemed to be in some sort of trance. 

After what had to be at least an hour, Lotor’s legs were getting stiff and he was bitterly cold. Once, he even tried to creep away from Allura and the circle of witches around him, but despite her delicate hands Allura’s grip was strong enough to keep him from escaping without causing a scene. 

Lotor had lost all track of time when Allura finally blinked and relaxed her hold on him. She slumped a bit in disorientation and weariness before collecting herself and standing up straight. All around them, the Clayr of the Watch thawed from immobile statues to humans once more, murmuring and milling about. 

“I was beginning to think the Nine Day Watch might have gotten its name for the length of the unbroken ritual,” Lotor grumbled. 

“What?” said Allura as if she hadn’t heard him. Her demeanor was hazy, as if her mind were still far in the future. But she must have heard after all, because after a pause and a deep breath she replied, “Oh. No, we only scry for a few hours at a time. We still need to eat and sleep, of course.”

Sure enough, a small contingent of the Clayr from the circle left the Observatory and returned with platters of food. The forty-nine Watchers plus Lotor sat on the benches around the perimeter to eat. Lotor’s soup was cold. Steam was rising from everyone else’s bowl, so he had to assume this was deliberate on the part of the deliverers or the cooks or both. The memory of heat was in the broth, though, and it would only take a gentle tug at the fabric of reality to bring it back. He almost did it before remembering that casting Free Magic in this company would be very, very bad. He scowled into his bowl. 

“What did you See?” he asked Allura as he ate his cold soup. She was the only one who would deign to sit near him, and he was glad of her company. He didn’t relish the thought of spending a week and a half in this room with no attention but the occasional distant, frosty stare. 

Allura stirred her soup absently, barely bothering to put any in her mouth. “The Kingdom in ruins. The Dead at the gates of Belisaere. Abhorsen’s House crumbled into the Ratterlin. The Wall, fallen.” 

Lotor gaped at her, waiting for an explanation. When she didn’t offer one, he prodded, “Is that what is going to happen?” 

“No,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s an improbable branch of an improbable branch of the far-flung future. We See many paths, and even with the power of the Watch it is difficult to focus our gaze. It is even more difficult when trying to see your mother, or you for that matter. It’s like having a blind spot in the middle of our vision. We must shift the view this way and that to get the full picture. That means exploring some outcomes that will likely never come to pass.” 

“So, you just look at possible futures until you find one you like, then work backwards from there?” said Lotor. 

Allura wrinkled her nose at the oversimplification. “It’s more than that. We’re not paging through a directory of futures. We are exploring the cause and effect of millions of tiny alterations to find the future most likely to happen, and the tipping points most likely to influence it. It’s very difficult, and it takes a long time. That’s why we spend nine days here.” 

“Why…” Lotor started to ask, but before he could even begin, Allura set aside her untouched food and stood. Every other Clayr around the room stood at the exact same time, as if cued by some sound audible only to them. 

Allura held out her hand. “It’s time to begin again.” 

Lotor almost asked if he could sit down this time, or at least be given an extra coat. But Allura only shushed him when he tried to speak, and then her eyes were glowing again and she was unresponsive. Lotor had been excited to observe the Nine Day Watch, but if this was all it was then he wished he’d stayed in the lower halls with the others. The Abhorsen-in-Waiting might have wanted him dead, but at least he was more interesting than standing in silence on a sheet of ice with an impenetrable swirling panorama above him. 

He glanced at the ceiling off and on until he was dizzy, but he could make out no more than he had the first time. Instead, he began watching Allura. He found that when he quieted his mind, he could feel the current of magic buzzing where her hands touched his. She was not working the Charter, but the Charter was flowing through her. This was ancient magic, from when the Charter was not so far removed from its Free Magic origins. Allura was a perfect conduit, like a crystal polished to a flawless facet. 

With every rest taken by the Watch, Lotor coaxed more conversation out of her. He could only talk to her for brief periods in between seances, and she was always muddled after pulling herself out of the future and back into the present. But when he got her talking, he found her quick, funny, and much more open with him than he had any right to expect. She told him frankly of what she’d Seen with each attempt, and as they developed a rapport, she began telling him stories of what it had been like to grow up in the glacier. Allura’s company was the only saving grace of his time in the Observatory. 

On the third day, or what Lotor was told was the third day since there was no sunlight nor clocks here, he asked Allura over their supper, “Why don’t I have the Sight?” 

Allura’s mouth was full of the crusty brown bread they were sharing, and she took her time to chew it before answering with a question, “Why should you?” 

It was only curiosity, not a challenge. But Lotor felt the sting of offhand rejection. “Honerva was a Clayr,” he said. “That makes me one, too. Male Clayr are rare, but they exist – I’ve seen one or two since arriving. What’s wrong with me, that I’m not like them? Did my mother keep the Sight from me?” 

“She might not have done so on purpose,” said Allura thoughtfully. “Perhaps by the time she bore you, she was already so corrupted that the Charter in her blood had forsaken her.” 

Lotor felt his shoulders slump. “Am I forsaken then, as well?” 

“I’m not sure,” Allura admitted. 

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Lotor asked tentatively, dreading the answer and already knowing how pathetic he sounded, “Might I still Awaken some day?” 

Sure enough, Allura looked up at him with pity in her eyes. “At your age, it would be unprecedented.” She must have wanted to give him some kind of hope, because she added, “But your Clayr blood may yet grant you some other talents. You can have a life here, even without the Sight.”

Unwanted by his mother, and now a charity case in the one other place he might have called home. Lotor almost threw his food against the wall. “You know,” he said ruefully, “I used to imagine that I had a different mother. I’d tell myself stories that my true family were Royals or Clayr. It’s strange to think that the mother I dreamed of and the mother I had were one and the same.” 

Allura reached across the bench and took his hand. Lotor almost flinched at the touch. After days of holding hands mechanically, professionally, this was the first time she’d touched him of her own free will, with no duty or necessity to prompt her. After a moment, he allowed his fingers to close around her palm. 

“She did not deserve you,” she said with conviction enough to make Lotor believe it was true. “That you escaped from her, that you survived, that you joined our cause is proof of your integrity and strength. You were right. The Clayr are your true family. And we are lucky to have you, Sight or no Sight.” 

It took Lotor several seconds before he trusted his voice to answer. “Thank you,” he said to her. 

Their friendship grew in the days that followed. At Lotor’s request, Allura began showing him the basics of Charter Magic. Though he couldn’t tap into it like she could, he listened to her explanations and watched her trace symbol after symbol in the air. 

After a particularly long string of marks of which Lotor had lost track halfway through the demonstration, and which accomplished nothing more than warming up his hands a little, he complained, “I could have done the same thing with Free Magic, with considerably less study and effort.” 

Allura’s mouth twisted in displeasure. “Free Magic may be an easier path,” she said, “but the Charter is safer. Masters of Charter Magic can work spells that would be impossible with Free Magic, unless you were willing to burn yourself to a husk in the attempt.” 

Lotor scoffed. “Free Magic predates the Charter. It is as natural as breathing.”

“As natural as death,” Allura countered. “Nature is chaotic. Over time, nature produces decay. Corruption.” She reached out and brushed two gentle fingers over the scar on his forehead, his mother’s brand. 

Before she could pull away, Lotor took her hand and held it where it was. The cool pads of Allura’s fingers rested on his brow. He could feel the Charter in her, like a voice behind a heavy door. But he could not reach it. Not without a doorway of his own. “Could I gain a Charter Mark?” he wondered. 

A blush had started to rise on Allura’s cheeks as Lotor held her hand, but now she brightened. “Of course! I know how to do it, in fact. I can baptize you after the Watch has ended.” 

Now Lotor counted the hours even more closely. Having a Charter mark would open a whole new line of study to him, perhaps unlock new potential. The Clayr might even accept him, as Allura had, if he showed them he could practice magic their way. And if it all went wrong, as it had for him in the past, Free Magic would always be there for him. 

There were more grueling days of Watching. For Lotor, more grueling days of standing in exquisite boredom. He’d stopped craning his neck to try and See into the ice. It had looked the same for nine days now. But he did not tire of looking at Allura. The more time he spent with her, the more he came to feel that she was everything he’d always wanted for himself – powerful, beautiful, loved, safe. She’d never felt fear in her own home, nor had cause to doubt her mother’s love. The magic that came naturally to her was made of order and light instead of chaos and corruption. He longed for her, and he wasn’t sure if the longing came from envy or desire. 

When the light dimmed in Allura’s eyes, Lotor scanned the room, anticipating a chance to stretch his legs and fill his stomach. But this time, no one moved. They stood waiting, staring inwards as Allura collected herself. Finally, she spoke. 

“It is ended,” she intoned. “The necromancer Haggar, once called Honerva, disgraced of the Clayr, will be defeated by a coalition of the Great Bloodlines. Royals, Abhorsen, and Wallmakers will rise up against her with all their armies, power, and ingenuity. She will be vanquished, and threaten the Kingdom no more.” 

Lotor’s heart surged. This was better news than he could have hoped for. A decisive victory, and an end to his mother’s evil. Once she was dead, he could finally be truly free. 

But Allura wasn’t done. She sounded tired as she went on, “There is currently a dispute between two of these factions. The Royals will not join the coalition until Prince Takashi is turned over to them. The Abhorsen will not bend to this demand. The Wallmakers will be divided in their loyalties. The Clayr will remain neutral, as we must. In order to realize the outcome we have Seen, where good prevails and the Kingdom is secure, we must counsel patience and diplomacy. Only when the coalition is united can we move against Haggar.” 

As one, the line of Clayr filed out of the room as if they had never been there. Melenor paused briefly to put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and tell her, “You have done well,” and then she was gone, too. The Nine Day Watch was apparently over. 

Only Allura remained, swaying slightly and looking drained. Lotor would have liked to comfort her, but his head was still spinning with what she had just said. After nine days of staring into ice, was that all she had to offer? 

“And what now?” he demanded. 

Allura rubbed her eyes, trying to focus enough to reply. “That’s all,” she said. “We’ve done our part. A path to victory has been discovered. Now we must convince others to walk it.”

“But what are we going to _do?_ ” said Lotor, raising his voice in spite of himself. “If we need a coalition of the Charter Bloodlines, how do we force them to work together?”

“It doesn’t work like that. We give counsel. What they do with it is up to them.” 

“That is unacceptable!” Lotor really was shouting now, his voice echoing back on him from all corners of the room, but he was unable to stop. For nine days he’d stood silently, trusting in the Clayr’s judgement. Finally his voice burst forth. 

“Is this glacier full of cowardly, passive fools? You cannot mean to See the future only to wash your hands of it! If the Queen is unreasonable, replace her with a monarch who will put self-interest aside. If the Abhorsen will not bend, force her hand. If the Wallmakers will paralyze themselves with indecision, rally them! Your neutrality is a privilege bought by your gates and your wards. If the Clayr thought for a second that the danger could touch the inside of this mountain, they would act! Not just toss platitudes while the people who could save the kingdom dither about in…”

Just as his voice crescendoed, Allura’s eyes rolled back in her head. Lotor stopped mid-word and leaped to catch her before she crumpled to the ground. His anger pushed aside by worry, he cradled her limp body as she stared blankly into space, and called her name.


	18. Allura, Seeing

Allura always felt groggy after a Nine Day Watch. The prolonged Seeing trained her vision on the future, and it was difficult to adjust to the here and now. After past Watches, she’d had to spend hours or even days recalibrating her eyes and her mind until the world around her came into focus again. 

But this time she’d been Speaker of the Watch, and the effect was more pronounced than ever before. Since the Watch ended she’d felt as though she were teetering on the edge of a vision, her toes gripping the dirt of reality while her heels tipped over a cliff edge that plummeted down into the future. And though she’d tried to focus on what Lotor was saying to her, she’d finally fallen. 

When the vision was over, she woke slowly. The Observatory swam back into view around her, and Lotor’s face stared down at her, stricken. He was holding her, shaking her lightly and calling her name. The anger was gone from his face, replaced only by concern. 

“I’m alright,” said Allura.

Lotor helped her to her feet. “What happened?” he demanded. 

“A vision,” she muttered. She almost told him what she’d Seen, but quickly decided against it. “It’s of no matter. Let’s go.” 

She was so distracted that they’d almost stepped into the tunnel leading out of the Observatory before Lotor cleared his throat and said, “The blindfold?” 

“Of course.” Allura tied the strip of cloth over his eyes and guided him out of the ice. The guards at the entrance gave her strange looks. She was sure there would soon be rumors of why she’d stayed behind so long in Lotor’s company. 

As they made their way back toward the inhabited part of the glacier, the halls went from deserted to bustling. Passing Clayr gave them a wide berth. Many of them stared at Lotor, even turning around after they’d gone by to get a better look. Gossip traveled fast among the Clayr, and they’d had nine days to pass around speculation about the Free magic sorcerer in their midst. Even if someone hadn’t heard who Lotor was, anyone would look twice at an unfamiliar male Clayr. Lotor could not escape their scrutiny. And as long as Allura was with him, the stares would be on her, too. 

She didn’t mind. Nine days in Lotor’s company had convinced her of his trustworthiness. Though fate had dealt him an unlucky childhood, all he wanted was a chance at a meaningful life. He was disciplined, curious, and fantastically intelligent. Perhaps he would never have the Sight, but he would have a home here. The others would have to learn to accept him. 

The only thing that gave her pause was his flash of anger at the Watch’s findings. She’d been so dazed during his outburst that she couldn’t remember more than a fraction of what he’d said, but she’d seen his face and heard his tone. If he was to win the Clayr over, he could not afford the luxury of a bad temper. 

But she saw none of that anger in him now. He was almost sheepish as he glanced at her every few steps, one hand resting at the small of her back as if he expected her to fall again at any moment. Allura would normally have been annoyed at the patronizing gesture, but she allowed it because Lotor’s touch gave her a thrill. Besides, she still felt shaky, and she was glad of the support. 

They followed the flow of foot traffic back to the Northway, then took a side hall to reach Allura’s chambers. Since they’d been in the Observatory all this time, no one had bothered to assign Lotor a room. Allura didn’t have the authority to give him one of the vacant apartments, and she wasn’t sure he’d be safe in the visitors’ rooms off the Lower Refectory. For now, this would have to do. 

She led him inside. The front door opened into a small sitting area, with a study and a private bath attached – a modest set of rooms, as befitted her age and station. As they entered, she dodged ahead of Lotor to close and lock the door to her bedroom. No reason for him to go in there, she thought as her cheeks grew warm. 

“I must speak privately with my mother,” she told him. “Please stay here until I return. The others might give you trouble if you try to wander around the glacier.” 

Lotor was pacing the room, inspecting it with his eyes and with a long, graceful finger drawn along the back of a chair. “I thought you were responsible for me. Will you get in trouble for leaving me alone?” 

“It’s only for a short time,” she promised. She hesitated before adding, “I’ll have to take precautions. I’ll lock you in, of course. And…” She raised her hands apologetically and began spinning the Charter Marks for binding and silence. 

“I understand the locked door,” he said quickly, before her spell could land on him, “but couldn’t you leave me my hands and my voice? Nine days in the Observatory was so dull I’m near to losing my mind. At least let me entertain myself while you’re away.” He gestured to the little bookshelf against the wall. 

Allura held the spell in her hand for a moment, swirling the marks to keep them active, before finally letting them dissipate unused. “I suppose that’s fair. Please try not to make any noise.”

“It will be like I’m not even here,” Lotor promised as she left. 

Once back in the hallway, Allura called up three strong marks for locking and stamped them around the latch from the outside. When she was confident that the door would not open without her leave, she raced back down the hall the way she’d come. She ducked through the Great Hall and risked the Narrow Way, squeezing down the long, cramped corridor as quickly as she could until it opened back up and became the Southscape, which housed the senior Clayr. 

Allura let herself into Melenor’s chambers. The main living space was bigger than all of Allura’s rooms combined, and decorated with a plush carpet and elegant furniture. Shelves and sconces dotted the walls, holding strange artifacts and intricate pieces of art. The south wall was taken up by a large window overlooking the Ratterlin valley – a breathtaking bird’s eye view that Allura never failed to appreciate. 

Melenor had just set down her moonstone circlet, and was untying the clasp of her robe. Her hair, unpinned, fell almost to her waist in a waterfall of platinum curls. She seemed to be getting ready for a bath after their long stretch in the Watch chamber, but when Allura entered she paused and smiled. 

“I’m very pleased with your performance as Voice of the Watch,” she told her daughter. “My concerns about your personal attachment were unfounded. You directed our Sight well, and the conclusions you reached were sound. I am proud of you.” 

Allura blushed and stammered as she absorbed the praise. “T-thank you, mother. But it is not the Nine Day Watch I’ve come to discuss with you.” 

“What is it?” said Melenor, her brow furrowing. 

“I had another vision as I left the Watch chamber,” Allura explained. She spoke slowly and paused frequently, trying for the first time to put what she’d seen into words. “It was unlike any vision I’ve had before. I didn’t just See it. I could feel the ground under my feet, I could taste the air, my heart raced, I was _there_. I Saw…” She found herself unable to describe the confusing, contradictory details of what she’d witnessed, so she simply said, “I Saw the death of the Prince, Takashi Shirogane.” 

Melenor seemed unconcerned. “All will die, in their time.” 

“No!” said Allura, “I Saw him die young, as young as he is now. And there were other things, troubling hints at a terrible outcome to any confrontation with Haggar. This was not some glimpse of a far-off future. It was a warning!” 

Melenor looked tired as she crossed the room and cupped Allura’s face in her hand. “Do not worry yourself over this vision. You saw many such disastrous outcomes during our Watch. They are filaments of fate, futures floating into possibility and disappearing just as fast. It will not come to pass.” 

“It felt so real,” Allura protested. “Like the truth showing for just a moment through a haze of misdirection. Could it be some hidden future that I was only able to See after being sensitized to its call by nine days of Watching?” 

Melenor shook her head. “No one else has shared this vision. The Watch has not Seen it, though we have kept our eyes upon the Prince all his life. It is no hidden truth, only a troubling distraction. Try to put it out of your mind.” 

Her mother’s counsel had always quieted Allura’s doubts in the past. But now, she still felt the awful vision pressing on the backs of her eyes. “I feel that I must warn the Prince,” she said. 

“You must not!” said Melenor. “Allura, if we shared every vision we had with the outside world, it would throw the kingdom into chaos. It is our burden to See all possibilities, and our duty to interpret what we See so that it might be useful to others. People think the future is carved of stone, but it’s not. The future is carved of ice. Touch it too much, and it changes its shape.”

Allura nodded, though she was still troubled. 

“We are both tired,” said Melenor, kissing Allura’s forehead. “Rest. We will speak of this again tomorrow.” 

Allura retreated back to the hall. Melenor was right – she was tired. Part of her wanted nothing more than to bathe and sleep a deep, dreamless sleep as she usually did after a Nine Day Watch. But the greater part of her was restless. She took the long route back, walking slowly and matching her breaths to the rhythm of her steps. Nothing seemed to calm her. When she reached the Northway, instead of turning west toward her chambers, she went east toward the Zigzag and the hidden path up the Starmount Stair. 

There was a quiet meditation to climbing that long, spiral staircase. Allura relished the calm it granted, the comforting pulse of Charter marks in the stone around her, and the burn of her thighs with each step up the steep risers. It felt good to be aware of her body after so long outside of it. She pushed through fatigue to keep up her pace, allowing sweat to break out on her arms and back despite the chilly air in the stairwell, hurrying upwards toward her goal – the Starmount summit, home to the Paperwing flight and landing platform. It was rarely used unless a visitor was arriving or a Ranger expedition was leaving, and Allura often went up there to be alone. 

As she reached the topmost landing and opened the door, the last of the warm air filtering up from the halls below was swept away by the cold shock of mountain wind in her face. She rubbed her arms as she pushed forward into the hangar. The Paperwings sat quietly, eyes dull but still seeming to watch her as she passed. Opposite the stair entrance, the hangar doors led to an open-air terrace. Allura hurried that way, looking forward to fresh air and time to think. But as she approached, the silence was cut by the sharp twang of a bowstring and a voice shouting in wordless frustration. 

Allura almost turned around to look for a more private place, but curiosity overtook her and she poked her head onto the terrace to see who was there. Lance was standing on the precarious edge where it plummeted down to the vast ice field of the glacier below, and he was nocking another practice arrow from a stack at his feet. Allura stood quietly, watching him spend over a minute lining up the next shot. Finally, he loosed the arrow over the edge, letting it arc gracefully down the thousands of feet to the glacier’s face, and he cursed again when he saw where it had landed. 

“There is an archery range in the High Halls,” said Allura in a conversational tone, making Lance yelp and almost drop his bow. 

“Allura!” he gasped, feet sliding in the snow as he whirled to look at her. She hadn’t been impressed at their first meeting, but he looked very different now, and Allura wondered if she’d surprised a moment of genuineness out of him. Instead of a practiced smirk, his wide eyes and open mouth made him look vulnerable, even embarrassed. “Oh, wow. You look… beautiful.”

“Oh…” Allura stammered, touching her netted hair and brushing at her dress. She’d forgotten that she was still wearing the uniform of the Nine Day Watch. “Thank you.”

Lance crouched and busied himself sorting through his arrows. “If you’re here, I guess that means the Watch is over,” he said. “What did you See?”

Allura had come up here to put that very thing out of her mind. She changed the subject without bothering to explain. “What are you shooting at?” she asked brightly, shuffling closer to the edge where Lance stood. The cliff below was steep, and there was no guard rail. 

“N-nothing…” Lance tried to say, but as soon as Allura drew level with him she could easily see the result of hours, perhaps days, of Lance’s practice. Dozens of arrows and their broken remnants, looking like twigs in the distance, littered the stark white expanse of the glacier below. Some had fallen short or blown wide, but most were clustered around a single point of color on the snowy plain – a red banner waving lightly in the wind. Some visitor had lost their scarf, only for it to blow up here. 

Some of the arrows were obscured by the snow that had blown over them. The ones that had been on the glacier the longest were nearly buried. The newest ones, the ones sitting on top of the snow, were in the center of the cluster. The effect made a pattern like a bulls-eye, showing the progression as Lance’s aim tightened around the scarf. 

“Look,” said Lance, fiddling with his bow as Allura studied his work. “I came up here because I didn’t want anyone making fun of me while I practiced. Pidge boosted the range on this thing, but not the accuracy. It’s like starting all over again learning to aim it.” 

“Lance, no one would make fun of you for this,” Allura assured him. “Hitting a target so small at such a range is an amazing feat. I don’t know if any of my sisters in the Rangers could do it, even with magic to help them.” 

Lance’s cheeks were already red from the wind and stinging snow, but Allura thought she saw their color deepen. “Really?” he muttered. 

As he kicked at his arrows, hesitating to draw another one with her watching, Allura found a soft patch of snow and sat down. Her long dress bunched up around her awkwardly, and the ground was very cold, but it was worth it to rest her legs after her march up the stairs. “Do you mind if I stay a while?” she said. “I won’t disturb you.” 

“No, but…” said Lance, “won’t you be cold?” 

Allura rubbed her arms, which were already starting to tingle with numbness. Her dress was heavy and had long sleeves, but it was not made to be worn in this weather and she wished she’d changed before coming up here. “I’ll be fine, though I won’t be able to stay for long.” 

Someone had loaned Lance a set of winter gear, and he looked comfortable in snow boots, lined oilskin trousers, and a fur scarf. A heavy wool coat completed the ensemble, but Lance peeled his off to offer it to Allura. She took it gladly and draped it over her shoulders to keep out the worst of the biting wind. 

Without the bulky coat in the way, Allura could see the graceful lines Lance’s body made as he lined up another shot. He pulled it back to its full extension, his arms and shoulders in a perfect line with the arrow where it bisected the arc of the bow. As the wood bent, Charter marks flared and crawled on its surface, awoken by the potential energy held in its draw. 

The arrow landed within a few yards of the scarf and broke, its pieces skittering over the ice. Lance picked up another arrow and began to aim again. 

“If you…” Allura began before quickly falling silent again. She had only been thinking, and hadn’t meant to speak. But now Lance was looking at her expectantly, so she finished, “If you thought something bad was going to happen to someone you knew, but you might be wrong, and there might not be a way to stop it, would you tell them?” 

Lance stared at her quizzically. “Something bad? What do you… Oh no! Is it me? That’s why you’re up here, isn’t it?” He looked this way and that for signs of danger, noticed the sheer drop at his feet, and scuttled back from the edge with a squeak. 

“No, no!” Allura assured him. “Not you. Just… someone.” 

More cautious now, Lance returned to the edge and continued his target practice as he replied, “Then, who? And what’s going to happen? I can’t be much use if I don’t know the details.” 

Allura drew her knees up to her chest and stared at the snow. She hadn’t told her mother everything. She certainly wasn’t about to tell Lance. 

After a few arrows’ worth of silence, Lance sighed. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me. It sounds like some Clayr stuff anyway, so not exactly my area of expertise. I’m just a city guard’s kid. I’m not supposed to be involved in kingdom politics or magic prophesies. I just point my bow where I’m told.” He fired again, the arrow spinning left before catching the breeze and curving back toward the scarf to land tantalizingly close. “You, though. You’re good at this stuff. You’ll know what to do.” 

“But I don’t,” said Allura. “I don’t have all the answers just because I’m a Clayr.” 

“I don’t mean because you’re a Clayr. You’re brave – you proved that when you rescued us from the Mordicant. You’re smart, otherwise you wouldn’t be as good a Charter mage as you are. And you have good judgement. When the rest of us were letting our personal feelings get in the way of deciding what to do with Lotor, you were the only one looking at both sides with a clear head. Whatever you Saw, I know you’ll make the right decision.” 

Allura sat in stunned silence for a moment or two before remembering to say, “Thank you, Lance.” 

He didn’t answer. He was busy aiming his next shot. He took his time with this one, reading the wind and adjusting his angle by millimeters. When he finally released the arrow, it swooped high through the mountain air before speeding downwards to nail the red scarf to the ice. 

Allura felt better as she descended the stairs back to the warm, safe hallways under the stone. She hurried back to her room, feeling guilty. She’d left Lotor alone for much longer than she’d intended. She kept her head down and dodged people as she passed them, trying avoid conversation. Luckily, her uniform was enough to remind most people that she was likely tired and trying to get back to her quarters. 

By the time she turned off the Northway, her feet hurt and she was exhausted. She passed dozens of near-identical doors on her way down the hallway, muscle memory making her stop and turn at the correct one. 

She reached for the handle, and froze. 

Her door was standing slightly ajar, the latch shattered, her locking charm disintegrated. 

She knew even before entering that Lotor was gone.


	19. Keith, tested

Keith blinked his way slowly into wakefulness. It had taken some time to unlearn the heart-pounding dread and shallow sleep of the road with Dead at their backs, but nine days of comfort and safety had melted his reflexes until he could enjoy a lazy morning, warm from the Clayr’s steam-filled walls and soothed by the starlight glow of Charter marks on the ceiling. With each blink, the lights above pulsed brighter, and Shiro’s sleep-softened face settled into sharper focus where it lay on the pillow across from him. 

“Morning,” Shiro mumbled. His arm was looped around Keith’s waist, heavy compared to the linen sheets that covered them both. Someone had cut his long hair. It was tight to his head now, with only the shock of white hanging down over his brow, the way he’d worn it when they were young. Their legs were tangled together, and tangled in the sheets, hopelessly enough that Keith felt no urgency to free himself. 

Keith rolled closer to Shiro and kissed him. “Morning,” he replied, both of them smiling helplessly against each other’s mouths. 

For the last nine days while Allura was away with the Watch, while Pidge and Hunk flitted around the Library and the kitchen, while Lance disappeared to wherever he’d been hiding all this time, Keith and Shiro had kept themselves busy, too. By their second night in the glacier, Keith had moved his things into Shiro’s room and claimed half of his bed. Since then, they’d barely left each other’s side. There was very little they could do to be useful until the Nine Day Watch presented its findings, and the Librarians couldn’t seem to find their copy of the Marmora book in the labyrinth of their older levels, so all the attention Keith and Shiro would have normally paid to their responsibilities they poured into each other instead. 

“Tell me again,” said Shiro, tucking a lock of Keith’s hair behind his ear. 

Keith knew immediately what he meant. “I love you,” he said, as he hadn’t stopped saying since they’d arrived, as he never tired of saying. “I love you, I love you.” 

Shiro seemed to glow each time he heard the words. He rolled on top of Keith, propping himself up on one elbow, and kissed him hard enough to press his head into the mattress. “I love you,” he answered between kisses. “I love you.” 

Keith could have done this all day, and had done for days at a time, but this time they both felt the press of duty creeping up on them. This lull couldn’t last forever. The Nine Day Watch was ending today, and as soon as their findings became known the wheels of all their fates would begin turning again. Keith was tempted to stay petulantly in bed, to drown himself in Shiro’s love and make the future come find him, if it wanted him. But he couldn’t even do that. They had an appointment. 

“We should get dressed,” Keith mumbled regretfully as Shiro mouthed his ear. 

Shiro gently collapsed his weight onto Keith, pinning him. “I know,” he said, but made no effort to move. 

“Pidge will never let us hear the end of it if we’re late,” Keith said, trying to roll Shiro off of him, but not trying too hard. 

Eventually they managed to get out of bed and into their clothes. Keith buckled his bells and sword over his mail and surcoat. He’d enjoyed foregoing them for lighter clothing or for nothing at all, but he planned to visit the Library later to check in on Romelle’s search for the Book of Marmora and it was best to be protected when going into those halls. Shiro tied the loose sleeve of his shirt up at the shoulder and stole a final kiss before they both stepped out into the maze of the glacier. 

Nine days should have been enough to familiarize oneself with the main routes of the glacier, expansive and chaotically-designed as it was. Neither Keith nor Shiro had bothered to do that, though, so they looped and backtracked their way through the corridors, wasting time on wrong turns and dead ends. Finally, Keith managed to summon just enough residual childhood memory of the place to find a spindly staircase leading to the mezzanine level which housed the laboratories of the Clayr’s mages. From there, they knew the way to the little antechamber Pidge had claimed as her workshop. 

“Finally!” she burst out as Keith and Shiro entered, though they were right on time. Her Wallmaker tunic had clearly been through the laundry – the dust from the road was gone and it was shining green. A set of thick brass goggles sat on top of her head with magnifying lenses of various strengths fanned out above each eyepiece. The scuffs and burns on her leather gloves looked fresh, and blobs of wax from used-up candles dotted the floor and the worktops. “Come on, sit down. I want to get started!” 

“Hey, guys!” said Hunk with a cheerful wave. He was wearing a simple apron (also wax-spattered and singed in one corner) and carrying an irregular cylinder made of wire mesh. 

Keith inspected the wire object as Hunk came closer. It was an arm, the mirror image of Shiro’s remaining one, its match in proportion and size. Bands of heavier gauge ran the length of the forearm and outlined a biceps and deltoid, tiny hooks and L-bends made up a set of boxy rectangles arranged in the shape of wrist bones, and each finger was a tight spiral of delicate silver. When he peered even closer, he could make out Charter marks swimming through the metal and settling in clouds and eddies within its bounds like smoke in a bottle. Near the shoulder, a moonstone like the ones in the Clayr’s circlets hung suspended in a magical matrix, a focus point for the enchantment. 

Shiro was watching, too. He tugged his shirt with the knotted sleeve over his head and gave it to Keith, leaving only a sleeveless undershirt that exposed the stump of his amputated arm. “Where do you want me, Pidge?” He followed the point of her finger and sat down where she indicated: in the center of the room, surrounded by a mandala of Charter marks sketched in chalk. He crossed his legs and gave a reassuring nod to Keith, who hovered just outside the chalk circle nervously. 

“How long will this take?” said Keith. 

“Not long,” Pidge promised. “Most of the work is done already. I’ve been layering the spell onto this construct for a week. It’s all in there. Now I just have to attach it.” 

Hunk was scooting around the perimeter of the circle, placing little candles at even intervals. When he reached Keith, he added, “The construct was my idea. Pidge’s original plan was to make Shiro sit here all week while she built the arm directly onto him.” 

“Good thing I listened,” said Pidge breezily. “I have a feeling you two would have gotten really distracting.” 

Hunk laughed at that, and Shiro and Keith shared a sheepish glance. Keith didn’t think they’d been too obvious, but they also hadn’t been secretive, and he should have known his friends would pick up on something. 

Pidge positioned the wire frame of Shiro’s new arm level with the stump of the missing one, and the two of them worked together to keep it in place. Keith saw a tiny shiver run across Shiro’s back as the metal touched his skin. “Do you want me to help?” said Keith. 

“You’re a battle mage, not a technician,” said Pidge with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Just stand over there and stay out of the way.” 

Pidge straightened, and the air in the room seemed to buzz with power as she rubbed her hands together. When she clapped, the candles all around her lit themselves with soft puffs of flame and the spells woven into the metal arm awoke with a pale violet light. The chalk on the ground burned up, each line replaced by the glow of smoldering flagstones. Charter marks rang out from her mouth, less like a litany and more like a song, to finish the spell she’d built over so many days. 

She’d made it sound like this part would be simple, but Keith could barely keep up as she layered magic onto magic onto metal onto flesh. Some marks he only vaguely recognized; some he had never heard before. As the buzz in the air turned into a crackle, lifting Pidge’s hair and making Keith’s fingernails itch, Keith fought the urge to take a step back. Watching Pidge work was always a good reminder that for all his power and skill he could not come close to a Wallmaker’s precision. She wove a web of magic around Shiro more complex than Keith would have had any hope of controlling – if he’d tried, it would have fallen apart in his hands. As Keith stood, marveling, Pidge clicked the final components into place and finished with three master marks. 

Keith flinched when the first one left her mouth. No master mark was easy to invoke, but some were safer than others. This was not one of the safe ones. Many unskilled mages had tried to speak it only to find they couldn’t control it, burning out their throats and mouths. Keith had even heard stories of mages dying from attempting marks beyond their abilities. Pidge was skilled, but she didn’t have raw power like Keith and Shiro did. 

But the mark flowed out of her smoothly, and so did the next two. Keith couldn’t understand it until he noticed Hunk crouched behind her, hand on Pidge’s back. He supplied the power; Pidge directed it. Between the two of them, they held stable a spell that would have shocked the greatest mages in the Kingdom. And as the last mark took hold, the metal arm glowed so brightly that it washed out the whole room. 

When the light dimmed, the metal framework was gone. In its place was an arm made of white light. Its surface seemed to shimmer, and Keith realized that he could see tiny Charter marks racing over it. 

Shiro opened one eye, then the other, dropping his shoulders and unscrewing his face from where he’d flinched at the blast of magic. Apprehension turned to wonder as he flexed his new arm experimentally. “It’s amazing, Pidge,” he gasped. “But what did you do? The last time I saw magic like that was at the Wall. All I needed was a way to hold a sword!” 

Pidge sat back, looking drained by her superhuman effort. But she still had enough energy to wave her hands excitedly as she said, “What’s the fun in that? Anyone can stack some Charter marks together in the shape of an arm, but then you’d have to consciously use magic every time you wanted to move it. By linking it in with the Charter magic in your blood, I gave you an intuitive interface with a fine degree of control. It’s not just attached to you; it’s part of you, and it’ll adapt to the Charter inside you over time, constantly updating its code. You might end up being able to do things with it that I didn’t even program in! Hey, I was going to do a full diagnostic tomorrow when you’d had some more time to get used to it, but since you’re here can you try something for me real quick? Just hold this and… wait, let me find it…”

“Okay, okay!” Hunk interrupted, helping Shiro to his feet and shooing him and Keith toward the door. “I hate to be rude, but get out. I have a semi-manic Wallmaker on my hands who hasn’t eaten for almost a day and has barely slept for the last three. I need to stuff something food-like into her face and force her to take a nap. You two go enjoy the new arm.” 

He stopped in his tracks as he was in the process of herding them out the door, his face frozen in exquisite embarrassment. “I mean… I didn’t mean enjoy it that way,” he squeaked. Then he held his hands up in front of his reddening cheeks and shouted, “Not that you shouldn’t, if that’s what you want to do! It’s your arm! This is none of my business! Bye!” And he slammed the door after them. 

Keith grabbed Shiro’s hand and hustled him away from Pidge’s workshop before Hunk could hear him laughing. By the time they found the stairs and returned to the main level, Shiro’s laughter had overcome Keith’s mortification and they both doubled over, leaning on the walls and wheezing. It wasn’t until Keith caught his breath that he noticed he was still holding Shiro’s hand – his new hand, glowing softly and pulsing with magic. 

Keith took the opportunity to examine Pidge’s work up close. He ran his fingers from Shiro’s shoulder to his wrist, watching tiny Charter marks swirl haphazardly like dust motes in the matrix of his skin, before taking Shiro’s hand in both of his to knead his palm and splay his fingers apart. Incredibly, the hand was warm and soft and gave to pressure like real flesh, but it also thrummed with a power Keith could feel in his bones. Keith placed Shiro’s hand on his face and felt a familiar thrill of euphoria and strength – somehow, by tapping her spell into the Great Charter of Shiro’s Royal blood, Pidge had made his arm into something like a minor Charter Stone. It spoke to the Charter in Keith, bolstering and amplifying him, making him feel lightheaded and bold. 

He was about to put one of Shiro’s fingers in his mouth when a voice echoed off the stone walls, “Abhorsen Keith?” and Romelle appeared, rounding the corner at a run. Her long, blonde pigtails bounced as she skidded to a stop. She must have come directly from work, because she was wearing the red waistcoat of an Assistant Librarian with all its accessories. Keith reluctantly dropped Shiro’s hand. 

“There you are!” Romelle gasped, her hands on her knees, panting so hard Keith wondered if she’d just sprinted the whole perimeter of the main level looking for him. Only one thing could be this urgent. “I found it! I found the book!” 

“Where?” 

“I’ll have to show you,” said Romelle. “It’s in one of the restricted sections.” 

“Figures,” Keith sighed. He turned to Shiro, handing him his shirt back. “You don’t have to come. The guard captain said she would train with us. It’s been a long time since you got to put two hands on a sword.” 

Shiro smiled and shook his head as he untied the knot in his sleeve and pulled his shirt on. “I’m coming with you.” 

It wasn’t a long walk to the Library entrance with Romelle leading the way. She veered off the main corridor, taking them through a series of side halls and shortcuts before popping back out into the familiar area around the Great Hall with the stairs leading down to the Library nearby. As they entered the lobby, Keith mused that the pretty tiled floor, vaulted ceiling, and cozy sitting area were a disarming façade for the entrance to the most dangerous place in the Clayr’s glacier, and perhaps one of the more dangerous places in the Old Kingdom. 

A boy looked up at them from his place behind the large front desk. Keith had seen him here before, though not often enough to remember his name. His yellow waistcoat proclaimed him a Third Assistant Librarian, one rung below his sister Romelle, and his face proclaimed him no more than a teenager. He smiled shyly at Keith and Shiro as they passed, but waved Romelle over to the desk and whispered, “I want to see the Abhorsen’s book, too!” 

“It’s in the Old Levels, Bandor. You’re not allowed.” Romelle tapped the bracelet on his wrist, the twin to her own. Each held seven emeralds set in the band. On Romelle’s, three of the emeralds were glowing. On Bandor’s, only one. 

Bandor puffed out his cheeks in frustration. “You could let me in,” he wheedled. 

“Stay at the desk,” said Romelle, ruffling his hair as she left him behind and followed Keith and Shiro down the ramp to the first level of the Library proper. She called behind her as she went, “It’s safer up here!” 

The first few levels of the Great Library were made up of an impressive, but otherwise quite ordinary, collection of books and artifacts. The trio weaved through the stacks, following the gentle curve of the architecture as it spiraled deeper and deeper into the stone like the threads of a screw. As they descended, the orderly shelves and clean-swept floors gave way to clutter and dust. A warren of tunnels looped and dove away from the main spiral. Some of the side halls were open and inviting, some were cordoned off with tasseled rope, and others lay behind heavy doors reinforced by thick crossbars and metal gates.

The Charter magic down here was old and thick, flowing like syrup through the stone instead of flashing like light the way the newer enchantments upstairs did. And the deeper they went, the more Keith sensed wisps of Free magic everywhere, coming from behind closed doors and inside sealed cases and from the books themselves. Romelle slowed down and proceeded more cautiously, humming nervously to herself and fidgeting with something in her pocket. 

“What’s that?” said Keith when he saw silver flash between her fingers. 

Romelle pulled the trinket out of her pocket and showed it to him. “It’s a clockwork mouse,” she explained. “They’re standard issue for Librarians. It has a Charter spell in it, so it will run back upstairs to get help if I activate it.” 

“Do you think you’ll have to?” said Shiro, alarmed. 

Romelle closed her hand around the mouse and marched forward with it readied in her fist. “You never know down here,” she muttered. 

Ominous as it was, her answer didn’t seem to faze Shiro. He simply matched his walking speed to Keith’s and took his hand. The touch of his Charter-spelled skin quieted Keith’s nervous jitters, and Keith gave his hand a grateful squeeze. 

They walked a long way, ramping down so steeply that Keith felt sure they must be underneath the mountain now. Just when Keith was beginning to worry they’d soon pop out of the stone and into the Ratterlin River valley, Romelle stopped in front of a short, squat door made of pewter and embossed with a pointed rune that looked like an inverted scimitar. It was sealed with at least one visible lock and at least two Charter spells. Romelle passed her hand over it. The emeralds on her bracelet pulsed with green light, and the door quietly unlatched itself. 

Inside was a small chamber with a single rickety bookshelf against the far wall. The handful of thin books stacked within it had covers of paper, hide, and even wood, and rough bindings of tied leather straps. They looked less like professionally-made volumes and more like personal journals. Keith approached the shelf and peered at the dusty, unassuming stack. “They don’t look like much,” he said, reaching out to rifle through them. 

“Be careful!” Romelle warned, swatting his hand away. She pointed with one finger, indicating a single book without touching it or either of the ones beside it. “That’s the one you’re looking for.” 

Keith picked it up gingerly, and immediately felt the pulse of Free magic from under its loose, floppy cover. Despite its appearance, the power held within was too vast for Keith to fully comprehend. He realized that the version he’d seen at Abhorsen’s House with its artisan cover and spelled latch was a copy, and this was the original diary written by Abhorsen Kolivan. 

Shiro and Romelle stared at him. “Stand back,” he advised. Romelle skittered backwards until she was pressed against the wall. Shiro stepped closer to look over Keith’s shoulder as he opened the book. 

There was a single line scrawled across the title page in heavy ink. Two words were easily legible: “Knowledge” and “Death.” The two-letter word in between was smudged by a patch of mildew. 

“Knowledge or Death,” said Shiro. “I don’t think I like that.” 

“It says ‘Knowledge of Death,’” Keith sighed. “All my studies since I was a kid have been about gaining knowledge of Death.” 

Shiro grunted unhappily. “It definitely says ‘Knowledge OR Death,’” he said. “That book is going to try to kill you.” 

Romelle piped up from across the room. “A lot of the books down here will try to do that,” she offered. 

“It’s not going to try to kill me,” said Keith, forcing himself to sound like he believed it. “It’s going to test me. I just have to figure out how…” 

The instant he flipped the title page over, the book seemed to vibrate and a bolt of electricity arced away from Keith’s hands to explode sparks into the empty air before him. The sparks, instead of fading, brightened and coalesced into streaks of light, forming an intricate sigil hovering at chest height. It was made of Charter magic, but there was Free magic swimming through it too, and in the center was the same rune from the door. 

Keith barely had enough time to understand what the spell was doing – the combination of Charter and Free magic interfacing with the wards of the glacier, peeling apart their protective matrix, bypassing their rules – before the sigil flashed and he had to throw a hand up to shield his eyes. The light hit him like a winter wind, and he was immediately shivering. Something tugged at his ankles. When his vision cleared, he found himself alone in the First Precinct of Death. 

He drew his sword as he shifted his feet to resist the pull of the current – easy reflexes he’d earned from a youth spent walking in these waters. A forced visit to Death was unexpected, sure, but the Book of Marmora would not catch Keith off guard here. The water seeping into his shoes and the chilly mist beading droplets on his surcoat were as familiar to him as fresh air and sunlight. 

But something was different this time. Though the First Precinct was empty for as far as he could see, Keith felt the bizarre sensation of a disembodied arm around his shoulders and a hand stroking his face like a ghostly touch. Someone was touching his body back in Life. He could even hear Shiro’s voice as if shouting from another room, “Keith! Keith, come back!” 

He was about to step back across the veil, to tell Shiro not to worry, when the water in front of him began to ripple and boil. A column of it rose from the surface, looming over Keith as it slowly took shape. The dome of a head, a featureless face, shoulders, limbs. It was a humanoid sending like the ones who waited on his mother at her House. But those sendings were made of Charter magic. This one was called by Free magic, and shaped from the very fabric of Death. 

This was his test. Shiro would have to wait. 

Keith didn’t have to spend long wondering what was expected of him. Almost as soon as it was formed, the sending launched itself at him, slicing through the knee-deep water to close the gap. As it approached, the shadow-stuff that made up its body elongated in its hand and hardened into a blade. Keith raised his own blade to meet it, and the harsh peal of their swords clashing shook the air around them as Keith blocked the attack. 

The sending was no larger than Keith, but it was incredibly strong. The impact made Keith stagger, shockwaves rippling through his bones and almost making him drop his sword. While he recovered his balance, the sending, lightning-fast, wound up for another swing. Keith dodged this time, letting the arc of its shadow-blade fall harmlessly to one side. But his quick footwork left him vulnerable to the twisting currents of the river. As soon as it sensed that his stance wasn’t solid, the current wrenched at his ankles and he had to put one hand down on the riverbed to stay upright. 

They danced through their battle, Keith slow and clumsy due to the handicap of the water, the sending seeming to glide through it like air. It came after him, blow after blow, never tiring and never retreating. Keith dodged until his legs faltered and then, fatigued and flat-footed, he was forced to parry the hailstorm of attacks as they beat down on him. 

The barrage broke down his defense until the sending found a gap in his technique. Its blade sliced down, just missing his head, slamming down on his shoulder. Keith screamed as the aura around the blade oozed like acid through the chinks in his armor and bit into his skin. He tried to raise his blade, but his wound seared with fresh pain at every movement, and he was too slow to avoid the next attack as it swung toward his throat. 

The caustic blade stopped just shy of his skin, and Keith stood frozen and panting as he waited to find out whether he’d be killed or spared. After what seemed like an age, the sending dropped its blade to its side and adopted a casual stance. The battle was over. Keith had lost. 

But instead of ending the trial, it merely gestured toward the waterfall where the river tipped out of the First Precinct and fell into the Second in a little cloud of mist. “You are not meant to go through that door,” it said in a whispery, throatless voice before dissolving back into the river. 

Keith didn’t move. Only when he was sure the sending wasn’t coming back did he touch his shoulder gingerly. It was a serious wound, but not a mortal one. He could go on. He wasn’t sure if he’d already failed the test, or if the sending’s final admonishment was meant as a challenge he was supposed to defy. But he felt sure that returning to Life would end the test once and for all. 

“Come back, Keith!” Shiro’s disembodied voice shouted from somewhere far away. Shiro couldn’t hear Keith in return, but Keith whispered an apology anyway as he limped deeper into Death. At the lip of the waterfall, he spoke the words to open the First Gate and stepped down into the Second Precinct. 

The water was not much different here. A little faster, a little colder. But Keith knew despite the innocuous surface the riverbed was full of sinkholes deep enough to trap his soul for hundreds of years. He’d memorized their pattern, and could easily make his way through if he wasn’t distracted. But the two sendings who materialized in front of him were sure to make this journey more difficult. 

He hadn’t been able to beat one. He knew he stood little chance against two. So instead of drawing his sword, he reached for his bells. Solid, dependable Saraneth was the second largest, and favorite of Abhorsens. As Keith rang it, he hoped practice and confidence would make up for the fact that the bell was still untamed. 

It rang dully, reluctantly. Instead of stopping the sendings in their tracks and binding them to Keith’s will, as it should have, it only slowed them down just enough for Keith to duck beneath their blades as they charged him. He rang the bell again, mustering all his concentration, but the sendings pushed through his binding to attack again, and Keith was forced to draw his sword. 

This fight was over more quickly than the first. Keith couldn’t stand against superior numbers, and the concentration it took to avoid the sinkholes made him sluggish. He fended off the attacks until his foot slipped over the edge of a sinkhole, and he was forced to throw himself forward to avoid being dragged under. When he found his footing again, the tingle of free magic was on his face and his back. The sendings had flanked them, each of their sword points hovering just off his skin. He lowered his sword in defeat. Just like the first, these two sendings stood down and acknowledged his surrender. “You are not meant to go through that door,” one said, gesturing deeper into Death. 

“Keith, please…” Shiro’s voice was quieter now, but it still made Keith glance backwards. It seemed the two fights had taken mere minutes, but time could be tricky in Death. How long had he been gone? 

Keith waded to the far end of the precinct, dodging sinkholes as he went, until he stood on the ledge of the Second Gate. It was an enormous waterfall swirling down to the next Precinct, hundreds of feet beneath him. At a word and a touch, the water halted its motion to become a spiral ramp. Keith held the concentration of his spell as he descended, keeping the water under his feet solid by force of will. 

At the bottom of the spiral, he paused. The Third Precinct stretched out before him, a calm and ankle-deep shoal, deceptively inviting compared to the rest of the treacherous river. But Keith knew better than to be lulled. As soon as he stepped out of the whirlpool, his spell holding it still would begin to dissolve. When the water fell again, it would become a wave strong enough to wipe out anything in its path. That’s why this precinct was always so peaceful – it was scraped clean every few minutes by the worst of the river’s devastating power. There was no defense against it but to run through the Third Gate before the Second could catch you. Surely, the sendings could not attack him here. 

Keith heard a whisper behind his ear, and had to strain to hear Shiro’s faraway voice as he said, “Keith, I don’t know what’s going on in there, but I know you can handle it. Just don’t get in over your head, okay? I can’t help you from here.” 

Keith felt a pang of guilt mixed with gratitude. With renewed determination, he leaped off the waterfall and began to run. 

“No…” he growled as three sendings sprang up to intercept him. He couldn’t let them slow him down. There was no time for a fight, not with that terrible wave on his heels. So far his sword and his bells hadn’t helped him. Perhaps the book was waiting for him to bring his other skills to bear. 

As the first sending ran at him, swinging its blade, he coiled Free magic like smoke and acid around his hand. The sending’s sword was made of Free magic, too. If Keith could disrupt it, it would disperse back into shadow and water, disarming the sending and buying Keith time to escape. It was a high-risk tactic, though, because if he failed then the sword would remain a sword, swinging quick and keen toward his bare palm. 

He did not fail; the sending didn’t slice his hand off. But he did not succeed, either. He caught the sword in his hand, its edge dulled by the fire he held but still solid enough to make him stagger from the impact. They struggled there at a standoff, sword against spell, neither able to overcome the other. Keith could feel the Free magic of the sword slipping and twisting in his grasp, refusing to stand still long enough for him to understand it. But no, he was doing this wrong. He was thinking of it like Charter magic, trying to find order in chaos. 

The chaos was the point. 

As soon as he stopped overthinking and surrendered to intuition, the smoldering spell in his hand grew to a blaze. The shadowy sword began to crumble under his touch. It disintegrated down to a moth-eaten, brittle thing, and Keith was about to banish it completely when the other two sendings, the ones he’d forgotten about, slipped behind him to take advantage of his distraction. One raked its sword across his back while the other punched him across the face with the pommel, making his spell fizzle and sending him to the ground. 

As the sendings pointed their swords at him where he knelt, bruised and coughing, he heard the crashing roar of the waterfall beginning to swirl anew. The wave was coming. “I know, I know, I’m not meant to go through that door!” he screamed, raising his hands in defeat. The sendings didn’t stop him as he scrambled back to his feet and sprinted the final yards to the misty veil of the Third Gate. He shouted the spell to open it as he ran, and the portal appeared just as the trough of the oncoming wave sucked the water back from his heels. 

He dove through the gate into the Fourth Precinct, barely keeping his footing in the swift, thigh-deep water. The wave, its momentum broken by the gate, sloshed harmlessly around him as eddies and bubbles. Keith sucked air as he tried to regain his composure for the next challenge. 

Though he expected it by now, he almost despaired to see four sendings rise out of the water around him. How long could this go on? There were nine precincts in total. Did the Book expect him to progress through every one? And to what end? Keith hadn’t even been told the terms of the test. For all he knew, he’d already failed when he fell to the single sending in the First Precinct. 

He wearily reached for his sword, getting ready for another beating. But before he could draw it, he felt a disturbance – a unpleasant rumble that shook his bones and rattled his teeth. The ground seemed to pitch and sway under him, but when he looked down the riverbed was as calm as ever, the water flowing smoothly around his knees. The disturbance wasn’t coming from Death. It was happening to his body, back in the Clayr’s Library. 

Shiro’s voice was almost inaudible this deep in Death. “Keith,” he said. “Something’s wrong out here.” 

However this trial was meant to end, whatever the Book of Marmora had to teach him, it wasn’t worth abandoning Shiro to danger. Keith slammed the half-drawn sword back into its sheath and opened the misty gate behind him once more. With all his speed and all his remaining strength, he ran back through the Third Precinct and the Second and the First, toward Shiro and Life.


End file.
